


Twenty Years Wiser

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fourth Age, Other - Freeform, Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2003-11-07
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:23:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The king and queen of Gondor are without a heir; luckily, there is a loyal steward close at hand. Alas, he'd rather be sleeping with the king. Warnings: Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.</p><p>Follows: Shining One, Riderless, Roads Forgotten, Free Lords of the Free, Find the Sun, Dreams of Hope</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

_Warnings: Homoerotic content, sibcest. No violence or bad language._

_“In his time the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of its first glory; and it was filled with trees and with fountains, and its gates were wrought of mithril and steel, and its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk of the Mountain laboured in it, and the Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there; and all was healed and made good, and the houses were filled with men and women and the laughter of children…”_  
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return Of The King

Throughout the meal, Aragorn watched the secret grief beneath Arwen’s composed expression. Separated from her by the long table, crowded with feasting dignitaries from Harandor, he watched his queen smile serenely on the guests. Only from her long silences could he sense her pain at his news earlier, that Faramir and Eowyn were expecting their second child.

Three years had passed since his marriage to Arwen, and there had been no children. This was not remarkable in Elven families, where children were few and could be born centuries apart. In the families of Men, no children after three years of marriage was failure.

Aragorn did not think Arwen was sorrowful solely because of her failure to give him an heir, however; she simply wanted a child to love. When Faramir and Eowyn had visited with their firstborn, Morwen, they had had no chance to hold her their entire stay in Minas Tirith. Arwen had lavished affection and care on the child, insisting on feeding her, bathing her, dressing her, and watching over her while she slept.

Now, after three years, Eowyn and Faramir would have two children, and Arwen and Aragorn would have none. To distract himself from her misery, Aragorn drank heavily during the meal. He usually took only one glass, as he despised the feeling of lassitude the following day if he drank more. This night, he downed three or four; he wasn’t keeping track.

After the meal, as he and Arwen headed to their chambers, Aragorn saw the messenger from North Ithilien return. He handed a letter to Arwen.

“My lady, I’m sorry. I overlooked this letter. This evening, when I put the new dispatches in, I found it in my bag.” The man was overwrought by his mistake, so Aragorn patted him on the shoulder, assuring him no lasting harm was done.

Back in their chambers in the King’s House, Aragorn had an unsettling premonition. He watched Arwen closely as she opened the letter and read it. After she finished it, she stared, unseeing.

“What is it?” he asked.

Arwen smiled weakly. He saw unshed tears in her eyes.

“Nothing, really. It’s from Eowyn. She is going to Rohan before she is too big with child to make the journey. Morwen is already two years old and has never been to Edoras. Faramir will not accompany her, unfortunately. He is preoccupied with the restoration of Ithilien. Legolas has arrived with Elves from Mirkwood to begin the replanting…” Her voice trailed off. Aragorn held her in his arms as her sobs overtook her. He led her to the bed, pushed her down until she sat, and waited until her grief subsided.

He stroked her face and hair. The contrast of her pale skin and dark hair had never looked more beautiful to him than at the moment. _I would do anything for her. Why can’t I do this?_

“Perhaps we are trying at the wrong times,” he began, but a ghost of a smile on her face stopped him. He blushed at his foolishness; the idea that the granddaughter of Galadriel would not know when she was fertile was ridiculous.

“It’s not that, Aragorn,” she said softly. He still held her tightly, so she felt his body stiffen when she spoke again: “It’s not me.”

He stood up and paced the room. Gondor without an heir to the throne. The tenuous stability he had built would fall apart, and all their struggles would be in vain. There were no other heirs, and Faramir’s children, or grandchildren, would rule as stewards.

He smiled bitterly. If Faramir had not been his loyal steward, he was the purest of the Numenorean bloodline, and could have claimed the throne himself. Aragorn imagined telling Faramir that he would step down from the throne, giving the crown to Faramir, so that Gondor and the surrounding free lands could enjoy peace and stability. If he could not have children, it must be done.

Arwen watched him pace. She followed the thoughts crossing his face, and saw when he seized on a solution. She had already come to her own conclusions: “Faramir.”

Aragorn stopped pacing. It was not unusual for her to know his thoughts, but he could not see how she had done it this time. She said, “In him, the blood of Numenor runs almost true, as it did in his father.”

Aragorn returned to the bed, sat next to her, and took her hands. He could see she was hesitating to say what came next. He had never seen her hesitate to speak to him before, so he braced himself for her words.

“If Faramir…” she began, and halted. He squeezed her hands reassuringly. “If Faramir could be persuaded to give me a child…” she said, her words ending on a questioning note.

Aragorn did not release her hands. His face paled. His mind entertained a new scene: asking Faramir to lie with the queen. It was impossible. Better that…better that Gondor fall apart? Even if the people of Gondor could be persuaded to accept Faramir as king, strife would break out, and other claims to the throne made. Civil war would result.

He looked at Arwen and saw her resolve. He knew that she had already considered every option, and had made her choice. While the idea shocked him, he knew she was right. She saw in his face his acceptance.

“I can deny you nothing,” he whispered.

“We must act soon, while Eowyn is away in Rohan,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss him.

“No,” Aragorn said, sudden doubt filling him. “I cannot ask this of him. Nor of Eowyn. Already they feel beholden to me, that their lives are in my hands. They will not be able to refuse.”

Arwen stroked his face and smiled. “All the better reason to ask, my lord. They are deeply in your debt; would they not rejoice at a way to serve you?”

Aragorn grunted at the truth in her words. “We must ask Eowyn as well,” he said.

Arwen said, “Yes, but not yet. There is a chance Faramir will refuse, or that he will fail to give me a child. If so, I would spare her the pain.”

***

Faramir woke up in his old rooms adjoining the King’s House of Minas Tirith. Three weeks without Eowyn and Morwen had left him lonely and unsettled, so the invitation from the king and queen, written in the queen’s own hand, had delighted him. It was Midsummer, and the city would be full of festivity and song.

His old quarters were not as he had left them, for which he was grateful. Beautiful hangings made by the queen and her ladies-in waiting covered the walls; a bird in a gilded cage sang at the rising of the sun.

“Go back to sleep!” he called good-naturedly to the bird. It burst into even louder song. He laughed and got up.

A party would be held that night, with lords and ladies from all over Gondor, including some of his mother’s kin, whom he had not seen in years. He whistled at the bird as he washed and dressed.

***

Aragorn and Arwen returned to their chambers prior to the dinner and celebration. They had spent the day with Faramir, showing him the changes in the city since the end of the war. Trees had been planted on each of the city’s seven levels, stonework repaired, and the city’s population had grown by more than a thousand. The gates were still in pieces; the dwarf Gimli’s labors on the new gates of mithril and steel would take many years to finish, although he was aided by many of his own folk.

Arwen looked at herself in the small mirror above the dressing table. Aragorn came up behind her and whispered, “You look beautiful.” She smiled at him. “No man could resist you,” he said, kissing the tip of her ear.

“Remember our plan,” she said. Abruptly, their plotting struck Aragorn as ridiculous. How absurd for a man to arrange the seduction of his own wife! He laughed softly, and Arwen laughed with him.

As she rose and gave him her hand, he felt a strange pride in her: Faramir truly did not stand a chance. He took her arm, and they went together to Merethrond, the Great Hall of Feasts. All who saw them noted their smiles; it had been some time before the king and queen had looked so happy.

***

The meal was almost over. Faramir yawned. The last course of the meal was still to come, fruit and wine from the Southlands. Could he stay awake for it? Maybe not. He had arrived but the day before, after a tiring journey. He felt he could sleep for weeks.

Suddenly, the king was at his side. “Faramir! I’ve been looking for you. Arwen and I are going to have the last course in our chambers. Please join us.”

Faramir smiled. “That sounds perfect. I’ve been struggling to keep my eyes open. I’d love to get away from all this noise.” He waved a hand at the reveling guests. Aragorn took his arm, walking quickly, and Faramir had trouble keeping up with him.

“Slow down, Strider!” he said, and Aragorn looked at him in surprise. Faramir had never called him by that nickname. “How much wine have you had?” he asked the steward. “Perhaps too much,” Faramir admitted.

When they arrived at the royal chambers, the queen was already there. She had removed her outer robe of embroidered cloth, and wore only the simple dress beneath. The thin, light blue cloth clung to her. Her hair fell like twilight over her shoulders.

Faramir’s mouth fell open at the sight. He had never seen Arwen in such a way, in such a setting. The moonlight streamed into the room, illuminating a small, round table by the windows.

Aragorn steered him over to the table, which was set for three, bowls piled high with fruit. A bottle of wine stood open, and two more waited on a deep windowsill.

“Sit down, my dear Faramir,” Aragorn said. “Please share the last of the meal with us.”

Feeling clumsy, Faramir sat down and served them all fruit, while Aragorn poured out the wine. Arwen sat next to him at the round table; Aragorn took the seat opposite him. Facing the moonlight, Arwen looked even more beautiful.

Faramir observed Aragorn and Arwen regarding him with amused smiles: he had paused, with his fork halfway to his mouth, mesmerized by Arwen’s beauty. He put the fruit in his mouth and chewed furiously, looking down at his plate.

Gradually, he relaxed as Arwen and Aragorn chatted comfortably of the guests at the party that evening. Many old friends had been present, and the enormous quantity of personal news divulged would be something to talk over for weeks.

Faramir listened drowsily as Arwen informed them of her brothers’ latest doings. He knew he should not have more wine, but Aragorn kept pressing it on him. He was too befuddled by Arwen, and the wine, to notice the king had drunk almost nothing.

His head drooped, and he sat up with a jerk.

Aragorn laughed. “Our guest has tired of our company!”

“No!” Faramir said with feeling. “How could I tire of such company?” He looked at Arwen as he spoke, and his chest tightened at her expression. She was holding his eyes, and he thought he saw invitation in her face. _I’m drunk, very drunk_ , he thought. He swallowed and stood up.

“Faramir, you are in no condition to walk about! Rest here for a moment.” Aragorn led him to an alcove, draped with heavy curtains, furnished with a bed.

He sank on the bed and closed his eyes, murmuring his thanks as Aragorn pulled off his boots.

***

He awoke unexpectedly. The moonlight was gone and the room was in darkness. He felt a soft touch on his face, and knew that a similar touch had awoken him moments before.

“Eowyn?” he asked sleepily. He held out his arms and felt her enter his embrace. He buried his face in her hair. The hair smelled of flowers and something he couldn’t name. It wasn’t Eowyn.

“Faramir,” the woman said softly. He froze at Arwen’s voice. Someone heavy sat on the bed.

“Kiss her, Faramir,” the unseen person said. Aragorn. Faramir lay still, hesitant. His eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and he could see Arwen’s face inches from his own. His hands touched the thin fabric of her dress. Her lips moved close.

“What is happening?” he whispered, more to himself than to the king and queen. Aragorn lay next to him, pleasantly squashing Faramir between himself and the queen.

“Faramir, I want you to make love to Arwen. Look at her,” Aragorn said. His voice was quiet yet commanding. Faramir stared into the queen’s eyes. Her arms were around him. He realized with a start that all of his clothing had been removed.

“Why?” Faramir managed to get out. He could not look away from Arwen. She reached up and gently stroked his face, then ran a hand down his neck, onto his chest. His breathing deepened while he struggled for control.

How he wanted her -- he had always wanted her. Every man who saw her wanted her. He had never allowed the thought to linger in his mind, out of loyalty to Aragorn and to Eowyn.

“I cannot give Arwen a child,” Aragorn whispered. “You can.”

In spite of his lust and lingering drunkenness, it took only moments for Faramir to understand the full meaning of Aragorn’s words. This was no casual seduction; it was of great import to Gondor. But his mind was wiped clean when Arwen kissed him. He responded fully, rolling her over so that he was on top of her, grasping her waist, then sliding his hands upwards over her breasts. The thin fabric gave under his hands and he touched bare skin.

The queen’s dress rode up around her waist; she was naked underneath. He was already hard, and his erection brushed her stomach. He ended their kiss and trailed his mouth over her body.

Dimly he was aware of Aragorn at his side, watching. It fled from his mind as he was completely caught up in Arwen’s reaction to his touch: her gasps, her hands roaming over his body. When she wrapped her legs around him, he was lost.

***

The next morning, Faramir awoke to the bird’s song again. “I have a horrible headache,” he croaked at the bird. He rose from bed and took a long drink of water from the pitcher on his dressing table. He drank down more than a pint before he remembered the previous evening. Water flowed down his chin as he forgot to swallow.

Quickly he washed up and dressed. He could not face Aragorn; he had to return to Ithilien immediately. He would leave as soon as his horse could be readied.

At that moment, Aragorn entered the room.

Faramir slowly raised his eyes to Aragorn’s face. It held nothing but a friendly expression. Faramir sighed with relief, and said, “I had strange dreams last night.”

“That you ravished Arwen? That was not a dream.” Aragorn sat down on a chair by the window.

“I will leave immediately,” Faramir mumbled. “You must hate the sight of me.”

“If I hated the sight of you, why did I watch you make love to my wife three times?” Aragorn asked. Faramir looked at him in surprise; he did not recall Aragorn being there. Now it came back to him. Aragorn had been next to him, and at times…Faramir blushed.

“Ah, you remember,” Aragorn said. His amusement was plain. Faramir recollected, vividly, Aragorn kissing Arwen, while Faramir knelt between her legs, driving into her. His blush deepened: Aragorn had been naked.

“Arwen wants you to stay a few more nights,” Aragorn said. He got up, walked to Faramir, and put his hands on the man’s shoulders. “She wants to be certain she conceives.” Aragorn looked straight into his eyes, and Faramir forced himself to look back. “She wants you in her bed again tonight,” Aragorn said in a low voice.

 

***

Faramir moved restlessly about his bedroom in North Ithilien. Eowyn had sent word that she would be in Rohan for another month, perhaps longer, returning by October at the latest to avoid traveling in the winter weather. Faramir’s heart sunk. It was not yet August, and he missed her and Morwen terribly.

Disquieted, he recalled his time in Minas Tirith three weeks earlier. He badly wanted to tell Eowyn of it. Aragorn and Arwen had not asked him for silence, though both had implied it would be better not to tell Eowyn unless Arwen was with child.

He made an effort to push thoughts of the king and queen out of his mind. He had stayed ten days, and every night, except the first, had been spent in their bed. After the first few times, it seemed natural to spend his nights with the two of them.

He paced about the room, then lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes. He could not keep the erotic images from his mind. He had seen Aragorn make love to his wife, while Arwen’s hand stroked Faramir’s erection until he came. Arwen putting her mouth over her husband’s erection -- something Faramir had never seen a woman do with a man.

Then she had done it to him. Her wet mouth on him was one of the most incredible sensations he had ever felt. And was that when Aragorn had first kissed him?

He rolled onto his side and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if that would keep out the memories. Aragorn had kissed him, more than once. And he had felt the king’s hands on him while Faramir had made love to Arwen. Aragorn’s hands stroking his back, his legs, his buttocks.

While he had fully agreed with the royal couple that what they were doing was needed for the stability of the kingdom, it had been no excuse for his behavior, his depravity. He recalled Aragorn teaching him how to arouse Arwen, how to use his tongue between her legs to make her convulse. He had licked at her passionately while Aragorn had sucked on Arwen’s nipples. He remembered the smile of triumph he shared with Aragorn after she cried out for what seemed to be an impossibly long time. He could hardly wait until Eowyn returned so that he could show her…

He got up from the bed. His thoughts had caused him to harden. It was no use. He lay back down on the bed, pulled his breeches down, and grasped his erection, moving his hand swiftly. Images of the king and queen filled his mind: Arwen beneath him, biting his neck, hanging onto him tightly as he drove into her, the king caressing his back, his thighs. Ever since the Houses of Healing, where he had dreamt of Aragorn before awaking from the darkness, he had loved the king. He had buried that love well and deeply. Until last month.

At last, he let the forbidden image enter his mind: Aragorn’s fingers trailing down between his buttocks, slick with sweat and Arwen’s juices, pushing into him as Faramir drove into the queen, in rhythm with his thrusts. Faramir came explosively, then fell into an uneasy sleep.

***

A week later, Faramir re-read the royal dispatch nervously. Aragorn would arrive the next day.

He feared what his king would say to him; would Aragorn ask him to bed the queen again? Faramir struggled to understand his emotions. He admitted to himself that he wanted the king to demand his return. However, only a month had passed since he had last lain with the queen. She could not know so soon if she was, or was not, with child.

Yet something else troubled his mind and disturbed his sleep. Aragorn would be staying for three or four days, as his guest. And he could not keep Aragorn’s caressing hands out of his thoughts.

Only twice had Faramir given in to his shameful desire for a man, and each time had brought guilt and sorrow. The first time had been twenty-three years earlier. Aragorn’s impending arrival brought it back, as if it had happened only yesterday.

***

Twenty-three years earlier, in Minas Tirith, Faramir had been left alone -- again. His sixteenth birthday had gone unremarked, as Boromir was far to the South, and could not return in time. Their father Denethor was busy with affairs of state and never saw Faramir, except to tell him how he was coming up short.

Boromir was gone ten months, his longest absence yet, and Faramir was eager to show his brother how much he had changed. He had grown almost half a foot in height, and put on twenty pounds of muscle. His beard had sprouted. He was no longer a child; he was certain he had become a man.

_In short, I was a young fool. Desperate for the attention of my elders, uncertain of my worth, treated with coldness by our father: what happened was no surprise to anyone but myself._

Although Faramir had no love for battle, he dutifully practiced all of the soldiers’ arts, and that year, with his new size and strength, he had even enjoyed it a little. It was satisfying to see his sword master since childhood grunt with the effort to keep up with him, and he had been elated when the sword master told him he would have a new sparring partner, one fit for such a promising pupil.

When Mardil, his new sparring partner, arrived two days later, he clasped hands gravely with Faramir, a formal yet kind smile on his lips. Faramir felt an unexpected shyness when their hands touched.

Mardil was perhaps thirty-five, and seemed more of a man than anyone Faramir had yet met (except for Boromir, he thought loyally). He was tall, two inches taller than Faramir who had reached six feet, and, although slender, he was well muscled.

The sword master had the long, blond hair and bright blue eyes of the men of the North, his face sharply cut, proud, like Boromir.

Mardil pushed Faramir hard in his lessons, and Faramir strove to please him. Twice that first month, Mardil gave him words of praise. Faramir hungered for more. With Boromir gone, no one else spoke any word of praise to him -- no one as beautiful, or as admirable, as Mardil, anyway. The affectionate clucking of the housemaids did nothing to soothe his craving for attention.

***

From the first day, Faramir wondered why a man as skilled in arms as Mardil was given the light duty of training young men. He found out the reason abruptly.

Cheered by news of Boromir’s approach to Minas Tirith, Faramir did better than usual that day, keeping Mardil on the defensive, forcing the sword master into exacting footwork. Faramir had been wholly focused on disarming Mardil when his teacher fell. One moment Mardil had been standing; in the next, he toppled forward heavily, landing on Faramir and driving him into the ground.

Faramir stood and offered to help Mardil up, but the sword master pulled away, stood with an effort, and walked silently back to the armoury.

Faramir saw Mardil limp slightly, and followed him, uneasy.

Mardil went directly to the small room where bandages and healing salves were kept for the soldiers, and sat down on the room’s only furniture, a long and sturdy bench. As he stripped off his upper clothing, he spoke not a word to Faramir. He did not tell Faramir to leave, however, so Faramir stayed.

When Mardil removed his left boot and unwrapped the bindings around the foot, Faramir stifled a gasp. A third of Mardil’s left foot was missing; the three smaller toes were gone, and an angry purple scar covered the remaining skin. Mardil finally acknowledged his presence.

“Mace,” he said briefly. “Could have been worse. If it had taken my largest toe, I would have to walk with a stick. Makes me a bit unsteady on my feet at times.”

He motioned to Faramir. “Come, let’s have a look at your back.”

Faramir obediently removed his clothing from the waist up and sat on the bench next to Mardil. Mardil turned him so he straddled the bench, his back to the sword master.

Faramir grimaced when Mardil’s fingers touched his back. Sharp stones had cut through his leather jerkin and the shirt beneath when he had fallen, and the wounds stung painfully as Mardil pulled out the embedded bits of stone and smeared salve on the cuts. Faramir did not make a sound, fearing that Mardil would find him childish.

Once Mardil had finished, he stroked Faramir’s back, rubbing a warming salve into his shoulders and arms. Faramir leaned back as his stiff muscles relaxed.

“You fought well today, Faramir,” Mardil said. Faramir felt his face grow warm. “Perhaps you will need a new sparring partner soon.”

“No!” Faramir cried out, startling them both. He turned his head to look at Mardil.

“We’ll see what your brother says, when he returns,” Mardil said. Faramir noticed an odd smile on the man’s face, but thought nothing of it at the time; he was too distressed that Mardil might leave him.

Mardil pushed him and he obediently faced away again. “You would miss me?” Mardil asked softly.

“Yes, of course. You’re the best instructor I’ve had, and…”

“And what?” Mardil said. His hands rested, unmoving, on Faramir’s shoulders. He had moved to straddle the bench behind Faramir. Faramir could feel Mardil’s chest hair tickle his back. He took a breath, savoring the sword master’s scent.

He closed his eyes as Mardil’s hands ruffled his hair. No one had touched him that tenderly for more than a year, when Boromir had nursed him through an illness. He kept his eyes closed as Mardil’s lips brushed his neck, jumping when he felt Mardil’s teeth nip his neck gently.

He turned his head again to look at the sword master. Mardil took his face in both hands and looked at him with a solemn expression.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?” he said to Faramir. His voice was so gentle, Faramir stopped breathing. With his fingertips, Mardil lightly touched Faramir’s red-gold hair, his full lips, and the golden fuzz on his chest. Then Mardil kissed him.

Even now, twenty-three years later, the memory of that kiss inflamed him. He had swung his body around to face Mardil, both of them straddling the bench, and wrapped his arms tightly around the sword master’s bare chest.

Mardil’s mouth pushed against his so hard he could scarcely breathe. Mardil’s fingertips grazed his nipples. Faramir’s mouth opened to draw breath, and Mardil took advantage of the open mouth, thrusting in his tongue. He kept his fingers on Faramir’s nipples, pinching them. In seconds, Faramir was breathing raggedly. He held onto the man tightly, too shocked to move, even to stroke Mardil’s skin.

Mardil pulled him up onto his lap, Faramir’s legs dangling off either side, so his mouth could take possession of Faramir’s nipples. At last, Faramir broke out of his trance, running his hands through Mardil’s long hair. His buttocks were resting on Mardil’s groin; he could feel hardness pressing into him.

So swiftly that Faramir cried out, Mardil pushed him off his lap and stood, unsteady without his boots.

Mardil rasped out, “Will you meet me? Tonight?” Faramir stood and nodded his head. He reached his arms out to Mardil, but the man pushed his hands away.

“Don’t touch me, or I’ll take you right here on the ground.” Mardil licked his lips, then rubbed them with the back of his hand.

Faramir listened in a daze as Mardil told him where he could be found that night, at an inn not far outside the city walls, a place soldiers routinely stayed. Then Mardil quickly dressed. Before he left, he pulled Faramir to him and gave him one brief, hard kiss.

_What a young, innocent fool I was. The first person who treats me with kindness, and I think it’s love. I think it’s loyalty, devotion. Or maybe I didn’t, and was simply desperate to sleep with the man._

He arrived at the inn in a state of feverish excitement. Except for a few clumsy gropings with boys and girls of his own age, when he had been nine or ten, he had had no sexual contact with anyone, not even a kiss. He thought of Mardil’s muscular tanned body, Mardil’s arms around him, Mardil’s lips on his. And that hardness pressing into him.

The smoky smell of the inn hit Faramir’s nostrils like a blow. Mardil was sitting, alone, at a table in a corner. When he saw Faramir enter, he made no sign to him, but rose and climbed a stairway to Faramir’s left. Faramir waited a moment, then went up the staircase.

He found Mardil at the top of the stairway, and followed him into a room. Even now he could recall the room clearly. The large bed piled with blankets, the chest on the floor with Mardil’s possessions, a single candle burning on the fireplace mantel. It was a warm night and there was no fire.

The door had scarcely shut before they were in each other’s arms. They tore at each other’s clothing and fell on the bed. He could not remember how they had undressed while kissing frantically.

As he let it come back to him, however, he could remember everything else with terrible clarity.

Mardil had maneuvered Faramir onto his right side, lying beside and behind him. His right hand caressed Faramir’s buttocks as his left hand stroked Faramir’s cock. There was a pause when Mardil’s hands went missing, and then they were back, coated with oil. Fingers dipped down, pressing between the cleft of Faramir’s buttocks, rubbing oil over his passage. Mardil’s left hand, slippery with oil, slid over Faramir’s cock.

If Faramir hadn’t released himself with his own hands in the armoury room after Mardil had left, he wouldn’t have lasted a minute. As it was, he didn’t think he could last more than a few.

He gasped as an oiled finger slid into him. Faramir was ignorant of that pleasure except by rumor, and what the soldiers had spoken of so flippantly had done nothing to prepare him for the ecstasy. The angle of the finger changed, and he moaned at the sensation. If he could have seen Mardil’s face at that moment, he would have been chilled by the man’s smile; once Mardil had his measure, the finger pounded into Faramir. At the same time, Mardil increased the pace on his cock, and Faramir came hard, crying out.

Before Faramir caught his breath, Mardil rolled him onto his stomach and entered him. Faramir was so aroused, and Mardil so lubricated with oil, that he felt little pain.

With his orgasm still humming through him, the pleasure was unbearable, and he moaned, almost screamed, with each thrust. The sensation left him helpless. Mardil’s hair swung over Faramir’s back in time with his thrusts, and the delicate tickling made Faramir feel he would lose his mind if it ever stopped. Mardil’s hands, strong sword master hands, gripped his hips. Faramir lifted his hips up so that Mardil could penetrate him deeper, faster. He had grown hard again.

And that was when the horror started. The door had opened, and Boromir had walked into the room.

***

It had taken Faramir several moments to come out of his fog of lust, and by then Mardil and Boromir had already exchanged several angry words.

“You!” Boromir had bellowed. At Mardil, not his brother.

Mardil had pulled away from Faramir as soon as Boromir entered the room, making no move to cover his nakedness, merely wiping himself on Faramir’s shirt, then sitting back on the bed. Faramir moved slowly to a sitting position, covering himself to the waist with a blanket.

He stared at Mardil, whose cock was still hard, even as the man flung words back at Boromir:

“I’m sorry, but your brother couldn’t keep his hands off of me.”

“You bastard,” Boromir said. His voice was quieter and Faramir tensed, knowing his brother was furious. He waited for the explosion, but it did not come. Boromir said to Faramir, “Come, get dressed.” Faramir obediently dressed, oblivious of the stained shirt, and walked to the door.

Boromir didn’t look at his brother; he was still glaring at Mardil, who lay on the bed, naked. Still hard. Mardil said with a smirk, “I was wrong about you. Your brother was sweetly untried.” Boromir slammed the door behind them.

Only after they had reached Faramir’s rooms in the Citadel did Boromir address him again. “Are you…all right? You are not hurt?”

“No. Not hurt,” Faramir said. The strangeness of what had happened was sinking in. Boromir knew Mardil. Anyone could fathom that. Even a young, lustful fool.

Faramir dared a look at Boromir and was wracked with guilt at the look of concern in Boromir’s face. There were new shadows under his brother’s eyes.

“Get into bed,” Boromir said. “You are sure you are not hurt?”

Faramir shook his head, undressed quickly, feeling shy about his nakedness, and got under the blankets. Boromir sat on the bed next to him. “You know him.” Faramir said. He could not keep the despair out of his voice.

“Yes,” Boromir said evenly. “He was my lover, once.” Faramir closed his eyes to shut out the look on Boromir’s face. So kind. Looking at the young fool, his brother.

“He picked me to hurt you,” Faramir said. Tears formed in his eyes, and he blinked to keep from weeping.

“That does seem to be the case,” Boromir said. He brushed Faramir’s hair back with his hand. Faramir shuddered as he thought of Mardil caressing his hair.

Boromir misunderstood, and asked yet again, “You are not hurt?”

Faramir whispered, “No.”

Boromir gave a small shrug. “Perhaps he didn’t do it to hurt me. You are beautiful, you know.” He smiled, a small sad smile, “You have changed in the last year.”

“Not as beautiful as you,” Faramir said impulsively. He saw that Mardil looked much like his brother. The same proud nose, the same strong, yet sensual, lips. Boromir, twenty-one, had a vibrancy Mardil did not.

Boromir smiled indulgently at his brother’s flattery. He bent down to kiss Faramir’s forehead, his blond hair falling on Faramir’s face, but, as his lips neared, Faramir gripped his shirt and kissed his mouth instead.

Boromir pulled back as if slapped.

“It’s my fault,” Boromir whispered. “I talked of you, to him. He knew what you meant to me.”

“Do you like men?” Faramir blurted. He knew the absurdity of the question even as he asked it, yet the events of the evening had overwhelmed him, and he was sorting through all he had learned.

Boromir laughed. Weakly, but it was a laugh. “I guess I do. At first it was playing, wrestling bouts getting out of hand.” He paused. “I met Mardil when I was your age,” he said bitterly. “He was thirty, and I worshipped him. He was my first lover. When he was hurt, and could no longer fight, I loved him even more. I admired his bravery. He went on as if nothing had happened.”

“Why did it end?” Faramir asked.

Boromir sighed, his face somber. “There are some people who cannot share love. They have so little of it in their hearts, they cannot conceive of loving more than one person. Mardil wanted all of my love. He was jealous, even of you.”

Faramir was stricken. _It was his fault._ He knew it.

Boromir continued. “Only later did I question why a man of thirty would be interested in a boy of sixteen. I think he lost interest in me as I grew older.” Boromir’s face grew hard. “Now I’m certain of it.”

“How could he be jealous of me?” Faramir whispered. Boromir noticed his look of anguish, and took his brother by the shoulders.

“Don’t try to understand such a man. He was convinced that I -- wanted you, in that way -- simply because I love you, talk of you all the time.”

Faramir thought of Mardil’s words. _I was wrong about you._ He shuddered, remembering the hatred in the voice.

Boromir shook him gently. “Please, do not let that man distress you. He was wicked, is wicked, I have no doubt of it now.”

Faramir barely listened as Boromir spoke in a soothing tone of the kind of man who favors young lovers, lovers he can dominate, lovers that do not threaten his fragile sense of superiority.

Mardil’s suspicions of Boromir swept Faramir’s mind, and he looked back on every word, every gesture, every caress of his brother, in this new light. _It might be true._

Memories crowded into his mind: Boromir walking in on him when he was in a bath, washing his hair for him. Boromir lying atop him in the practice yard, easily keeping him under control as Faramir struggled against the hard body above him. _Wrestling bouts getting out of hand._ The illness he had had a year earlier, when Boromir’s gentle hands had soothed muscles sore from fever. Faramir shivered, reliving the touch of those lingering hands. _It might be true._

Slowly, Faramir pushed the blanket off, so that he lay naked. Boromir took his hands off Faramir’s shoulders, but made no other movement. Faramir watched Boromir’s gaze flicker over his body. He saw nothing in Boromir’s expression save for anxiety that he might find an injury.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Faramir whispered. Crushed by his guilt, he felt a desire to strike out, to wound. “I liked it.” He saw the barb go home. Boromir flinched and turned his face away.

“Boromir.” Faramir made his voice insistent. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, Boromir faced him, his eyes fixed on Faramir’s face, not daring to look below.

“I guess I like men, too,” Faramir said softly. Faramir saw sweat bead up on his brother’s brow. Boromir’s hands jerked on the blanket.

Faramir sat up and embraced his brother, who was stiff in his arms. He pressed his lips to Boromir’s unyielding mouth. “Just kiss me good night. What’s wrong with that?” Faramir whispered.

Boromir’s cheek moved against his own in an attempt to smile. “Nothing…” Boromir began. Faramir thrust his tongue into Boromir’s opened mouth.

For one blistering moment, he felt Boromir respond. Their tongues touched, and Boromir’s tongue slid over his. Boromir’s hands were on his back, crushing Faramir to his chest. Faramir’s right hand, trapped between them, reached between his brother’s legs, rubbing the hard bulge covered by cloth. Boromir moaned into Faramir’s open mouth. His hands moved, set fire to Faramir’s nipples with a soft caress.

Boromir pulled away, leaving Faramir grasping at air, and stood up, his face contorted with effort. “Don’t touch me.”

It was a plea, not a demand. Faramir’s mind filled in the unspoken part. _Or I’ll take you right here._

***

_Am I twenty years wiser, or twenty years more foolish?_

_I never spoke of Mardil to Boromir again, and I sought no more men. To think of lying with a man was to think of lying with Boromir. Mardil’s resemblance to Boromir haunted me: Mardil may have used me, but I used him. I used him._   



	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king and queen of Gondor are without a heir; luckily, there is a loyal steward close at hand. Alas, he'd rather be sleeping with the king. Warnings: Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.

_Warnings: Homoerotic content, sibcest. No violence or bad language._

Aragorn looked at Faramir with concern.

They were dining in Faramir’s room. Aragorn had arrived late, four hours after sunset, and he had been famished. His hunger satisfied, he was struck by Faramir’s careworn face.

“I have news that I could not trust to a messenger,” Aragorn said briskly. “Arwen is with child.”

Faramir was stunned. “She knows, so soon?”

Aragorn nodded and smiled gently. “She is so happy.”

Faramir stood and walked to a window. It was small, narrow, and let in little moonlight. This refuge in North Ithilien had been built as a fortress, a place of hiding, not a palace. Nevertheless, the room was large and comfortably furnished.

“You will have this room,” he said to Aragorn. He tried to match the king’s brisk tone. “I’ll stay below, with the guards. I’m afraid we do not have many rooms to suit.”

Aragorn laughed. “That’s ridiculous, my friend. This room is big enough for both of us. I’ll take that couch. I’m not going to turn you out of your bed. You look as if you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Faramir smiled nervously. He needed Aragorn out of the room, now. He could feel Aragorn’s presence, like the warmth of the sun, falling upon him.

Aragorn stood and walked to him, standing close. “I hope that my news eases your mind,” he said in a gentle voice. “Arwen and I are so grateful to you.”

“What if the child is not a boy?” Faramir said roughly.

Was that what was bothering Faramir? “You know that doesn’t matter, my dear steward. A queen can rule in Gondor. And her children after her. Especially now, in a time of peace.”

“I knew that,” Faramir snapped. He moved away from Aragorn, to the other small window.

Aragorn felt a pang in his chest, fearing that Faramir had turned cold towards him. He knew that guilt plagued Faramir, as it plagued him. He felt guilt whenever he thought of Eowyn; perhaps he could help there.

“Faramir, when Eowyn returns, have her come to Minas Tirith on the way home. I will tell her what happened.”

Faramir looked at Aragorn, then looked away quickly. The concern on the king’s face made it too like Boromir’s. Tenderness. Respect. He deserved none of it.

“I’d like that,” the steward said gruffly. “I will have to be there, too.”

“Of course,” Aragorn agreed eagerly, thinking that, at last, he was resolving the rift between them.

Aragorn moved to Faramir’s side again, taking his hand. _Don’t touch me._ Faramir left his hand limp, then realized Aragorn would be puzzled, and gripped back, returning strength for strength.

“I must ask you something,” Faramir said. His voice rasped. “My brother…liked men. Did he ever…did you…” He was unable to finish his thought.

Aragorn put both hands on Faramir’s shoulders and squeezed. “I knew that of Boromir. But he and I were on a rough and dangerous road, with no privacy or rest.”

Faramir pondered the king’s words. Was his answer evasive? “What of Lothlorien? Did you not rest there for nearly a month?”

Aragorn’s mouth tightened, but he did not take his hands away. “What happened between Boromir and I is none of your business.”

Faramir flushed angrily, his anger for himself. How could he hurt the king with his accusations? _I am trying to infuriate him, to drive him away._ “Please forgive me, you are right. It is none of my business. It’s just, you, he would have been drawn to you, you are…” he stopped, humiliated by his nervous babble.

“Faramir.” Aragorn moved closer to him. Their bodies touched. “Please do not be troubled. I should not have been so harsh. I loved your brother, yet nothing happened between us. Only a kiss, only once, and yes, it was in the Golden Wood.”

“Only a kiss,” Faramir said thickly. The body brushing against him was warm and hard. He concentrated on controlling his breathing, the effort leaving him unnaturally still, his arms at his sides.

“Only a kiss,” Aragorn repeated, and kissed Faramir gently on the lips. He felt Faramir tremble. Desire flashed through Aragorn. _I don’t even like men. Yet I seem to like this one._

He had tried, in the last month, not to recall Faramir’s naked body in his bed, grazing him, responding to his caresses. The first time he had kissed Faramir, Arwen had the younger man’s cock in her mouth, and the steward was struggling for control. On impulse, Aragorn had put his lips to Faramir’s, to breathe in and share his desire.

The moment their lips touched, Faramir had latched onto him, locking his hands behind the king’s neck, thrusting his tongue in the king’s mouth. Aragorn had never been kissed so hard. It made his legs weak, and heat shot through him. He thrust his tongue against Faramir’s, trying to overwhelm that forceful tongue.

After that, he had grown bolder in his caresses, especially when Faramir was making love to Arwen, and could do nothing to stop him.

“Do you want to know what kind of kiss?” Aragorn said softly.

He felt Faramir tremble again; the steward’s head moved in the smallest of nods.

Aragorn closed his mouth on Faramir’s and pushed his lips open with his tongue. Faramir did not move, though tremors ran through him. Aragorn grasped the sides of his face and kissed him hard, pushing his body against Faramir’s.

At last, Faramir’s arms lifted and wrapped around him. His tongue probed Aragorn’s mouth, and he pressed his body back.

For more than a minute, they strained at each other, feeding on each other’s mouths, then Faramir pulled away. “You kissed him like that?” he panted.

Aragorn was expressionless, giving nothing away, but his lips were parted and his breath came quickly.

Faramir felt his fear and guilt subside. Like a wave breaking over him, relief flooded his body and his mind. Boromir was dead. Nothing he could do, now, could hurt his brother.

He lifted his arms towards Aragorn and moaned when the man embraced him, hard. “I am so sorry. I want you,” he mumbled into Aragorn’s shoulder. He felt Aragorn shake and knew it was laughter.

“Is _that_ what has been troubling you?” Aragorn asked. He was grinning, and Faramir felt a smile touch his own face.

“Yes, only that.”

He said no more as Aragorn pulled him to the bed. They stripped off their clothing, then lay down side by side. Faramir pulled a blanket over them both. He still felt shy about being seen naked, ever since the night Boromir had walked in on him. _I must get over it._

And none too soon, for Aragorn pulled the blanket away, and gazed at him longingly. “You are so beautiful,” the king whispered. His gaze roved over the muscular body, the flat stomach with the swirl of red-gold hair that trailed down…

Faramir gasped as Aragorn’s lips touched his nipple.

Aragorn smiled and sucked on the nipple. Arwen had told him that some men’s nipples were as sensitive as a woman’s. His own were not like that, although the feeling was pleasurable. As Faramir writhed beneath him, he felt elation build in him. He teased the other nipple with his fingers and was rewarded with a moan. “I think you like that,” he whispered.

Aragorn was filled with tenderness. He felt as tender towards the steward as he would towards a young maiden, her first time -- he pulled away as a thought struck him.

“Have you ever been with a man?” he asked Faramir. “I mean, besides what little you and I have done.” He felt his face grow warm.

Faramir’s face stiffened. “Just once.” He flinched. “Twice.”

Aragorn heard the finality in his voice and did not probe further. _He’ll tell me about it some day, but not now._ He went back to caressing Faramir’s nipples, gripping Faramir’s hips with one arm to keep the man from throwing him off, he writhed so violently.

Aragorn trailed his mouth down to Faramir’s cock, which had been poking him insistently in the chest as he stimulated the man’s nipples. When he took it into his mouth, Faramir cried out. Slowly, Aragorn moved his mouth over Faramir’s erection until his mouth could take all of it in. He moved his head up and down, holding on with his lips and tongue, leaving his hands free so he could play with Faramir’s nipples.

Faramir’s back arched and his hips lifted, pressing himself into Aragorn’s mouth.

“Please,” he moaned. “Please don’t stop.”

Aragorn suppressed his smile so he could focus on the hard cock in his mouth. The last thing he had in mind was stopping!

His hands left Faramir’s nipples and he placed them under Faramir’s hips, lifting Faramir’s body to his mouth. He wet one finger and ran it over Faramir’s balls and below, until he felt the opening. His saliva and Faramir’s sweat made the passage slick, and his finger slid in easily.

Faramir stifled a cry. His hands grabbed frantically at Aragorn’s hair. Aragorn slid in another finger and pushed in deeply. Faramir’s restraint broke, and he came violently into the king’s mouth, with several sharp jerks that threatened to throw Aragorn off the bed.

Both men collapsed, breathing hard. Faramir felt the king’s erection pushing into his hip. He looked into Aragorn’s eyes searchingly. He rolled onto his stomach, and, before he completed the movement, Aragorn was on top of him, his cock pushing at Faramir’s buttocks. Faramir gave a small cry of pain. Aragorn immediately pulled away.

“You will find some oil, there, just under the bed,” Faramir pointed at the floor. He would have blushed about it an hour ago -- it was the oil he used when he released himself with his hands -- now he didn’t care in the slightest.

Aragorn applied the oil to himself, spilling it onto Faramir’s body in his haste. When he lowered himself again, their slick bodies slid against each other, and then Aragorn was inside of him.

Aragorn held still, breathing hard, feeling sweat run down his face. It might not have been Faramir’s first time with a man, but it was his. Faramir grasped him so tightly he wasn’t sure he could move. He pushed in slowly, pulled back slowly. Faramir cried out again, this time unmistakably in pleasure.

Relieved, Aragorn moved faster. He felt Faramir push back against him and lust crashed over him. He growled Faramir’s name without realizing it.

“Faramir…I want you…so beautiful…I can’t stop…” Faramir’s excitement rose at Aragorn’s frenzied words. Aragorn pulled Faramir’s hips up so that he was on his hands and knees. Aragorn’s thrusts went deeper and harder in this position, and Faramir moaned at each stroke as the pleasure shot through him. His upper body collapsed onto the bed, his face muffled in the pillows.

Aragorn reached under Faramir and felt for his cock. Faramir had grown hard again and stiffened completely when Aragorn enclosed him with his hand.

Incomprehensible words came out of Aragorn’s mouth. Pounding into Faramir filled his mind. Nothing existed except the body below him, the cock in his hand, the man wrapped so tightly around his erection, their oil-slick bodies sliding against each other. Aragorn came out of his haze when he heard his name burst from Faramir’s lips.

“Aragorn,” Faramir panted. It sounded like a plea, a question. Aragorn did not think it was possible, but he pushed even harder, even faster, into Faramir’s body.

It was the right response, for he heard Faramir moan his name again, then Faramir’s cock pulsed in his hand. Faramir’s lust filled voice calling his name pushed the king over the edge, and he came hard, pushing down so violently in his last thrust that Faramir’s legs buckled. Aragorn felt stickiness all over his hand.

Even after his orgasm, he was still hard, so he pulled out of Faramir’s body carefully. It happened to him sometimes, a hardness that persisted. He grinned as Faramir turned and looked at his erection, puzzled. “Don’t worry about me. Sometimes it takes me a while to relax.”

“Do you need me to…” Faramir moved and would have taken Aragorn’s cock in his mouth, but Aragorn pushed him back.

Aragorn said, “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I need to rest.”

Faramir smiled drowsily. “You are the king.” His voice sounded smug.

Aragorn laughed, mirth shaking his body. “What happened to the man who wouldn’t embrace me an hour ago? I may have to accuse you of inconstancy.”

He waited for a reply, then realized Faramir was asleep! The king laughed, and pulled Faramir closer, so that the red-gold head was resting on his chest. The sleeping Faramir stirred against him and mumbled something he could not understand.

“By the way, I never kissed your brother,” Aragorn said lazily. His eyes closed, and he passed into sweet, dreamless sleep.

***

Two days later, Aragorn and Faramir rode alone to the slag mounds outside Mordor.

Aragorn had not been there since the battle at the Black Gates. He looked sorrowfully at the desolation. But when he glanced at the man beside him, a smile came to his lips. In the last two days, a great burden had lifted from Faramir.

He could see that Faramir’s rising spirits were affected by the tortured earth. The steward’s face looked full of care again. It reminded Aragorn of the question he had not yet asked, one he had put off for fear of breaking Faramir’s happy mood. With a slight movement, he signaled to Roheryn, and the horse pulled alongside Faramir’s mount.

“Faramir, I want to ask you about your first lover.”

Faramir looked at him in surprise, but, as always, his thoughts caught up quickly to the king’s, and he let out a rueful laugh. “As good a time as any, isn’t it? I couldn’t feel much worse.”

“Please, do not feel compelled to tell me.” Aragorn felt ashamed of mentioning it. Yet he also felt that Faramir needed to speak about it with someone.

“It was twenty-three years ago.” Faramir began. Keeping his voice light, he gave Aragorn the bare facts about Mardil.

Aragorn questioned Boromir’s suspiciously well-timed arrival, and Faramir explained that Mardil had planned every detail -- the fall during sword practice, the seduction -- and had sent Boromir an anonymous note warning of harm coming to his brother, Faramir, at the inn.

“He even used your pity for his injury to ensnare you,” Aragorn said angrily.

Faramir nodded. He did not tell Aragorn all that Mardil had said to Boromir at the inn, nor all of what had passed between the two brothers back in Faramir’s room.

When he mentioned Boromir’s belief that it was his fault, for talking so much of Faramir to Mardil, Aragorn surprised him with a laugh.

“That is indeed the Boromir I knew. Once you were in his confidence, he would talk night and day about Minas Tirith, the greatest city in all of Middle-earth, and Faramir, greatest brother and Captain -- in that order, mind you -- in all of the same.”

Faramir reddened. “Please do not tease me.”

Aragorn reached a hand across the space that divided them and touched his shoulder. “I am not. Truly, Boromir talked much of you. And his opinion of you was indeed that high.” _As is mine._ They fell into a comfortable silence as they rode south to the refuge in North Ithilien.

Later that night, Aragorn held Faramir in his arms; their lovemaking was increasingly passionate, and Aragorn felt physical pain at their coming parting. Faramir’s head rested on the king’s chest, his eyes open, looking thoughtful. Aragorn bent down and kissed him lightly.

“Faramir, when you were telling me of Mardil, you didn’t tell me all. It must be grievous, but please trust me: I will listen with an open heart. And if you cannot tell me, is there another to whom you might speak of it?”

Faramir let out a sound between a sigh and a snort. “There is no other, and you knew that before you spoke.” Aragorn smiled and said nothing. “It concerns Boromir,” Faramir said. Aragorn waited patiently.

“Mardil accused him of…desiring me. He said things, unforgivable things.”

“You do not have to repeat the words, if they pain you,” Aragorn said quickly.

Faramir bit his lip. How could he describe what had happened without losing the trust, the friendship, of the man he lay next to? He closed his eyes and plunged on.

“That night, when Boromir and I spoke, I realized it was true. Boromir did desire me.” He licked his lips. “And I desired him.” Faramir let out the breath he had not realized he was holding. “I did not act on it.”

Not then, he added silently.

***

Did not act on it. Merely fantasized about it every night. Any casual touch had been an excuse to linger. When the brothers embraced after a long parting, they clung together too long. When Boromir gave him a brotherly kiss on the lips, more than once Faramir had parted his lips involuntarily and felt Boromir’s breath in his mouth, felt Boromir shiver in his arms.  
  
 _He’s finally coming out with it_ , the king thought.

One night, two years after the misadventure with Mardil, Boromir had come to his room and kissed his brow gently, thinking Faramir was asleep. Faramir hadn’t moved, had kept his breathing even, as Boromir had stroked his face and hair. He was not sure how he had successfully fought for control. He had grown stiff with desire, rolling onto his stomach to hide it, still feigning sleep.

For years, he wondered what would have happened if he had embraced Boromir that night. For fifteen years, to be exact. Until Boromir had left to find Imladris.

When Boromir had persuaded Denethor that he, the older and hardier, should be the one to make the journey, Faramir felt a chill fall over him. There was something about the words, which had come to both brothers in a dream, which filled him with a nameless dread. _Then Isildur’s bane shall waken._ He felt in his heart it was a prophecy of death.

He pled with Boromir that he, as the younger son, could be more easily spared to make the journey, taking with him picked men of the Guard for protection in the wild. Boromir had put him off gently, making light of Faramir’s fears. Faramir did not speak of the dread that had fallen over him concerning Isildur’s bane, holding on to a childish belief that the evil would not happen, if it they did not speak of it.

Nevertheless, as the day for Boromir’s departure grew near, he felt a heavy weight on his heart. He hid it as he hid everything else. For, as the years passed, the brothers’ skill in hiding their feelings grew.

Almost, Faramir could convince himself that they were nothing more to each other than brothers tightly bound by the shared burden of an unloving father. Almost, but not quite.

While Faramir took no lovers, for he could not do so without Boromir filling his mind, he knew his brother was not so restrained. And, indeed, it would have taken great strength of mind for Boromir to remain chaste, for men flocked to him. Within the companies he commanded, there were many young soldiers who looked upon him adoringly. Faramir envied them, that they could let their love show openly on their faces.

Yet Boromir’s young men did not torment Faramir -- he felt almost solicitous of them, as they shared a common bond -- until one night in Henneth Annun. Boromir had made a rare visit, due to his approaching departure. The brothers had little time to spend together; Boromir coming to Ithilien to discuss the garrison with Faramir was the only way they could contrive to spend time together.

Not that they put it that way, even to each other. Boromir asked Faramir if he would like his opinion on the North Ithilien garrison, and Faramir had replied that he would be grateful for it.

When Boromir had arrived in the company of four Ithilien Rangers, the evening had taken on the air of a celebration. Faramir’s men looked upon Boromir with respect bordering on hero worship.

One face held outright longing. The man was young, just twenty-five, and had served two years -- a short time for a North Ithilien posting, which went only to the most trusted men. Faramir sought to recall the man’s name. Eldacar.

The men that night crowded around Boromir so eagerly that the brothers agreed, wordlessly, to let all business wait. Among all those keen faces, Eldacar’s face had shone the brightest in the firelight, as the men gathered around after the evening meal, to sip ale and listen to Boromir address them.

As Boromir spoke of battle, keeping his tone light, touching upon the absurdities, not the horrors, all had faced, Eldacar’s face had burned with a longing almost unbearable for Faramir to see, it reminded him so urgently of his own suppressed desires.

The party had not broken up till midnight. Faramir went to his room, began to undress, then recalled he must have a word with Boromir of tomorrow’s plans before turning into bed.

The Rangers of North Ithilien slept together in the great cave of Henneth Annun, their bedding on the floor taken up each day to make way for the tables where they dined. Faramir, as captain, had a small room carved out of the earth, and he had turned another small room adjacent to it, which he used as a storeroom for his maps and books, into a temporary room for Boromir. The room was also used as a sickroom, and held one of the refuge’s few permanent beds.

He looked into the room and saw it was empty, and left to search the wayward passages of the refuge. Henneth Annun had been carved by the water that now flowed overhead, and thus the cave twisted and turned, with many hollows large enough to stand in.

It was in one such hollow that he saw Eldacar, with a man. The man’s hands were stroking Eldacar’s back, raising the thin shirt so his hands could roam unimpeded. His hands slipped down to caress Eldacar’s buttocks, pulling Eldacar close. Faramir could not tear his eyes away: Eldacar was a beautiful young man, and Faramir felt a momentary twinge of envy for the man who caressed him, though all he could see of him was his hands.

How was he to get by them unnoticed? He could not reach the rest of the refuge without passing within arm’s reach of the two.

He retraced his steps thirty feet up the passageway, then trod noisily, letting his boots slap the stone, and called, “Eldacar? May I have a word with you?”

He rounded the corner, keeping his face impassive, hoping the men would have time to straighten themselves. They did, barely. When he came face to face with them, Boromir and Eldacar were standing side by side, their clothing not noticeably disarranged.

“Boromir!” Faramir said, shocked. His intention to question Eldacar about Boromir’s whereabouts vanished. He forgot the young man was there. His sudden appearance had the same effect on Boromir; he stared at Faramir with wide eyes. Neither brother spoke, and the silence stretched on until Eldacar spoke out nervously.

“Captain Faramir,” he said. “Captain Boromir was…” his voice died when Faramir looked at him. To the young man, the powerful emotion on Faramir’s face could be only disgust or rage. Eldacar feared that his captain had seen him clutching at Boromir, revealing him as a man with unnatural tastes. Not unknown among soldiers, but Captain Faramir had a reputation for being straitlaced in those matters. That his captain might overlook it, because his brother was involved, did not come to Eldacar’s mind at that moment.

“If I may be excused, my lord,” he said tremulously. Faramir nodded, and the young man took off hurriedly down the passage.

Faramir looked back at Boromir, who had control of himself once again. “I’m afraid you have ruined that lad’s bit of fun,” Boromir said as calmly as he could. He was astonished at the emotion in Faramir’s face; never had he seen his brother so full of feeling. Except once.

Boromir lowered his eyes and felt a wave of heat come over him, recalling to mind the night, so long ago, when he had come upon Faramir with Mardil. In a panic, he had opened the door at the inn, hearing what he thought were Faramir’s cries of pain. Faramir’s face had been transformed by passion, and Boromir had, for years, brought the memory to mind as he lay in his bed alone, stroking himself with his hands: Faramir on his knees, his upper body collapsed on the bed, pushing backwards with his hips to meet Mardil’s thrusts. His lips curled in a grim smile; perhaps he had something to thank Mardil for, after all.

Faramir took several steps towards Boromir, then stopped. “I wished to speak to you tonight.” Faramir’s voice held a trace of apology.

Boromir softened at the words. Faramir’s gentleness was a secret source of pride to him. That such a kind, considerate man had grown up under Denethor’s harsh influence was remarkable to Boromir; not once did he consider the role he had played in it. To Boromir, all was due to the innate goodness of his brother.

“I’m sorry, brother, if I have hurt you.” Boromir said softly. He closed the distance between them and put his hand on Faramir’s upper arm. As always, his body betrayed him, and his hand clasped the hard muscle more than needed. Faramir smiled, but abandoned it when he felt his lips tremble.

“Do not worry; I understand. Eldacar is a beautiful young man.” Faramir tried to inject heartiness into his tone, with grotesque effect. Boromir winced. As if in apology, he slid his hand under Faramir’s hair and lifted it, then let it fall back slowly, strand by strand, onto Faramir’s neck.

The simple gesture made Faramir break out in a sweat. For the first time, he perceived that Boromir was bootless, wearing only a thin shirt and leggings. He did not trust himself to speak, so he turned and walked quickly. Boromir followed.

Faramir went into the map room and lit a lantern. Boromir came in and pulled the rough wooden door shut. “Do you still wish to speak to me this evening?” Boromir asked. He felt the restraint of decades crumbling. For years, he had watched Faramir grow more manly, more desirable, and he had never looked better to Boromir than at that moment, his face flushed with emotion, hair disheveled on his shoulders, thin shirt open nearly to his waist, faded leggings snug and well fitting with long use.

Faramir shook his head. “No, perhaps not. It’s very late and we’re both tired.” Boromir watched with sympathy as Faramir picked up a pile of papers, his hands trembling.

“Faramir,” he said. “I leave here tomorrow. I leave Minas Tirith in four days.” Faramir kept his face averted, looking down at a shelf of books. “Faramir,” Boromir said, almost roughly. “You and I might not meet again.”

He regretted the words instantly, for Faramir swayed where he stood, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. Boromir rushed to him and embraced him, supporting him. “How dare you ask me for forgiveness,” Boromir breathed. “It is I that should ask you. For all these years, you have suffered because of me.”

Faramir wrapped his arms around Boromir’s neck. The wave of dizziness had passed, but he still felt unsteady. The dread of Isildur’s bane had come over him forcefully at Boromir’s words. He was grateful Boromir stood so close, for the dread lessened upon his brother’s touch. “I do not know what you mean,” he said, confusion on his face.

“Just now! You were sorry for interrupting me with Eldacar! As if it were not I who was doing something unforgivable!”

“Boromir! I have not suffered for years on your account. That is absurd.”

Boromir slid his arms down, gripping Faramir’s hips with his hands, pulling Faramir to him so that Faramir could feel him, hard through the cloth. “So I have suffered alone?” Boromir whispered. He removed his hands from Faramir’s hips and once again lifted the hair, this time on either side of Faramir’s face. It slid back into place, caressingly.

They stared at each other, unmoving. Then Boromir leaned forward and touched his lips gently to Faramir’s. It was a soft, chaste kiss, the same kiss the brothers had shared all these years, though it lingered a little longer. Boromir said hesitatingly, by way of explanation, “These past years, I have sought comfort with others such as Eldacar. Perhaps it has been too easy for me; they come to me, I never have to seek them out.”

“How many?” Faramir asked, surprising him

“Truly, I do not know. A dozen?”

“So many; did none of them then satisfy?”

Boromir felt his breath quicken. “No, they did not.”

Faramir regarded him gravely. “Perhaps you have been seeking comfort in the wrong place,” Faramir said. His arms were still wrapped around Boromir’s neck, dragging his head down.

Boromir felt fire race through his veins. Faramir’s mouth was so near he could reach out with his tongue and lick it.

“Not perhaps,” Boromir whispered. He pressed hard onto Faramir’s mouth with his own.

Immediately, Faramir’s body pushed into his, from lips to knees. They strove at each other as if they had only minutes to show their love, as if any hesitation would mean all was lost forever.

They stumbled to the rough bed and fell upon it, kissing. Faramir opened his mouth so Boromir’s tongue could roam it. He thought of that brief kiss years ago and was devastated to find that the passion then was nothing to what he felt now. Time had not lessened it but sharpened it.

Boromir ripped Faramir’s shirt open and his mouth greedily moved over Faramir’s chest. He yanked Faramir’s leggings down around his knees, then stood and removed his own clothing, destroying the fastenings. He fell back on Faramir. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once.

“Don’t stop this time,” Faramir said. The desperation in his voice squeezed Boromir’s heart.

“I won’t,” Boromir said, kissing him hard. With his foot, he kicked Faramir’s leggings the rest of the way down and off. Faramir moaned as their erections touched. Boromir’s hand slid between his brother’s legs and below, his fingers pressing; he wet the fingers in his mouth and returned them, one finger stroking Faramir’s opening.

At the touch, Faramir lost control completely. “Do it now,” he begged, lifting his hips up. “Don’t stop.”

Boromir licked his hand and Faramir gasped as the large rough hand pushed between his suddenly slippery cheeks. Faramir wet his own hand and rubbed his saliva all over Boromir’s cock, then leaned back and supported his upper body with his hands. Boromir sat back on his haunches and grasped Faramir’s waist, lifting him. Faramir marveled that Boromir could so easily move him; he had known Boromir’s strength was great, but he was himself a man of strong build.

No more preparation was made; Boromir pushed inside him, his hands grasping Faramir’s hips. Faramir moaned and put his feet flat on the bed to lift his hips higher, and felt Boromir sink in deeper.

Never had Boromir made love in such haste. His nerves were inflamed; he would perish if his passion was not slaked. Faramir’s position, face up, supported on his hands and feet, made it easy for Boromir to move Faramir, using hands on hips, and he drew his brother to him as he thrust forward, his folded legs under Faramir, Faramir’s buttocks directly above his crotch. With great urgency, he pulled Faramir to him, thrusting into him, until Faramir felt he was coming apart. The speed of the thrusts was so great his teeth clashed together, the back of his head hitting the wall behind.

Boromir rose up on his knees and wrapped his arms around Faramir’s hips, holding him as if in a sling; Faramir kept his hands on the bed to steady himself, his legs in the air. Weightless, all resistance to the thrusts gone, the thrusts came harder. Faster. Faramir’s mind emptied, his head fell back, and he clenched his teeth to stifle his scream. He came, his come splattering Boromir’s chest and face. Boromir lost control at the sight of Faramir’s head thrown back in passion; he made one last mighty drive, let out a strangled cry, and Faramir felt warmth fill him.

Slowly, they toppled over on the narrow bed. They lay, entangled, unmoving, for nearly an hour. Then Boromir got up from the bed and gently washed Faramir with a dampened cloth, then washed himself. He filled a cup with water and drank it down, then filled it again for Faramir. They stretched out side by side, gazing into each other’s eyes, their hands clasped between them. They did not speak, and Faramir felt tears build in his eyes, trickling into the bed.

Boromir lifted a finger and traced a tear. “I swear to you that you will see me again, even if only for one last time,” he said. Then, tenderly, slowly, they made love again.

One last time, Faramir thought. Alas, you were beyond my hearing then, if not beyond my sight. Lapped in water, with a radiance around you.

***

Faramir wept. Aragorn tightened his embrace.

“I did not act, but once. Before he left.” Faramir’s words mixed with his weeping. “Why just once? I could have had him, all those years.” The tears flowed more gently, and Aragorn brushed them away.

The king was momentarily shocked; he assumed Faramir’s secret grief hinged upon the shame of desiring Boromir, for he had discerned part of the truth from Faramir’s words and actions over the years, even more from Boromir’s. That Faramir’s grief sprang from the suppression of his desire for Boromir, the king had not expected.

But empathy came quickly. He had heard rumors of his foster brothers, Elladan and Elrohir, so such a bond was not unknown to him. And he, perhaps more than any other, could understand Faramir’s pain, for Arwen had been separated from him by long decades. Would he have fathered children on Arwen if they had wed when first betrothed? He drove the tormenting thought out of his mind.

Caressing Faramir, Aragorn said. “Boromir told me once you were the man he loved most. I did not know what he meant then, but…”

“You did not know what he meant? Why not? You and he were lovers.”

Aragorn cursed the swift mind of the steward. “Actually, we weren’t,” he mumbled. “We never even kissed.”

With tears still in his eyes, Faramir shook with laughter, and Aragorn joined him.

Once again the steward’s mood changed, and he spoke seriously. “I wish you had kissed him. He should have had more joy in his life.”

Aragorn shook his head. “He had plenty. He had you.”

“You know the worst of it now,” Faramir said, “and yet, you do not pull away from me in disgust.” Wonder was in his voice.

Aragorn looked at him gravely. “I knew Denethor,” was all that the king said.

Faramir let his head fall once again on Aragorn’s chest. He felt, more than heard, Aragorn’s next words, rumbling from chest to ear. “There is no shame. You and Boromir survived because of your love for each other. There was no one else to love you.”

Faramir closed his eyes. _There was no one else to love you._ Could Aragorn be saying that _now_ there was someone else to love him? No, not possible. The king could not love him, not in that way. He was referring to Eowyn.

But it was too late for reason. Faramir had fallen in love with the king, years before, in the Houses of Healing.  



	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king and queen of Gondor are without a heir; luckily, there is a loyal steward close at hand. Alas, he'd rather be sleeping with the king. Warnings: Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.

_Warnings: Homoerotic content, sibcest. No violence or bad language._

Faramir and Eowyn, with their two daughters Morwen and Theodwyn, arrived at Minas Tirith at sunset. It was Eowyn’s first visit to the city since Morwen had been born, when they had made a brief visit with the new baby.

A planned trip there on her way back from Edoras, eighteen months earlier, had not taken place, as a great storm had swept up from the sea. She and her party had turned from the longer road south, going directly to North Ithilien.

Now her youngest, Theodwyn, was a year old, and she was eager to see the city again. It was March, the time of the New Year.

Faramir had been oddly cast down when her journey to Minas Tirith had not taken place, but his spirits had quickly revived. Indeed, he had paid attention to her each night with such passion, she was at first overwhelmed.

Due to her pregnancy, several months had passed with no relations between them. Those days were well behind them, and she looked forward to the time in the city, where she would have plenty of leisure time to spend with her husband.

Most of all, she was excited that her daughters would meet the king and queen’s young daughter, Gilraen. She hoped the children would become fast friends. They were too young to do much more than roll on the grass together, yet the thought of even that filled her with contentment.

She was not disappointed by their reception in Minas Tirith. The people of Gondor lined the streets to watch the steward and his wife enter the city. Morwen and Theodwyn squealed in excitement, and Faramir beamed broadly.

“Hail the White Lady of Rohan! Hail, Prince of Ithilien! Steward of Gondor!” The people called out to them, throwing flowers. Her joy increased when she saw that Arwen and Aragorn had left the Citadel to meet them at the second city gate. They rode up to the Citadel together.

By the time they had dined and settled into their rooms in a fine new building adjoining the King’s House, she and Faramir were exhausted, and Morwen and Theodwyn were cranky. The family was asleep before the third hour after sunset had passed.

Four days passed swiftly. On the fifth morning, Eowyn and Arwen sat in the garden alongside the King’s House.

The high-pitched laughter of the children floated through the warm, early morning air. The children were indeed rolling about on the grass together. Theodwyn and Gilraen were still unable to walk more than a few steps, and falling on the soft grass made them shriek with delight. Morwen, three years of age, raced around them, throwing herself on the grass and giggling.

“Our daughters will grow up together, I trust,” the queen said.

Eowyn smiled back at her. “That is my dearest wish, my lady.”

Eowyn had felt no jealousy for the king’s beautiful wife, although she had thought, for a time, that she was in love with Aragorn. Any lingering resentment she may have felt vanished at their first meeting, when she looked into the queen’s eyes and saw there friendship and respect. That such a queen of Men and Elves looked upon her as an equal filled Eowyn with humility, and, eventually, with love.

That evening, a gathering in honor of the New Year would be held in the Great Hall of Feasts, so the two women went arm in arm to Arwen’s chambers to be dressed by the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Arwen insisted on arranging Eowyn’s hair herself, and Eowyn tried not to laugh as she was fussed over.

The queen had a newly made dress for Eowyn to wear, and would not take no for an answer. It was white, and had clear white gems on it that sparkled. Verily, Eowyn would be the White Lady of Rohan. For a moment, her eyes filled with tears at the queen’s thoughtfulness.

***

It was late, an hour before midnight, when Eowyn returned to her chambers. The children, after spending their first night with her, were in the royal nursery with Gilraen, so Eowyn made no attempt to be quiet as she looked for Faramir, whom she had not seen for close on an hour.

She walked through the rooms quickly, seeing no sign of him. She went back to the sitting room, and gave a start. A man was resting on a couch. She smiled when she saw it was Aragorn. She looked happy and tired as she sat next to him.

“I’ve lost Faramir,” she said. “Perhaps you will help me find him?” She spoke lightly and was surprised to see no answering smile on Aragorn’s face.

“What is it?” she asked sharply. Becoming a mother had honed her already formidable protective instincts.

“Faramir is with Arwen, in our chambers.”

Eowyn relaxed. Aragorn cursed inwardly. Her trust of Arwen and Faramir meant the words had not served as a warning, as he had intended. He would have to start all over again.

“I must tell you something that will hurt you greatly. I must tell you that I am…I was unable to give Arwen a child. And I, we, asked Faramir to do so.” He let the crushing words fall from his lips and steeled himself for her response.

She looked at him steadily. With relief, he saw that Eowyn’s self-control would keep her from breaking down in front of him.

He could not bear to see her weep. He remembered her tears at Dunharrow, when he had ridden away to take the Paths of the Dead. Her tears then had wrenched at his heart, and he had wished, more than once, that he could have returned her love.

He sat, silent, as she absorbed the news. “Gilraen,” she finally said. “His daughter,” Aragorn answered. She looked at him, and with shock he saw pity in her eyes.

Again she was silent. He could see her work out the details in her mind. She had no need to ask when, for she knew when Gilraen was born. And she would not ask why Faramir had been chosen; she knew his lineage. Finally, as a daughter of kings, she knew why Aragorn had consented to such a desperate measure.

Gently, she took Aragorn’s hand. Tears welled in her eyes, but they were not tears of anger, or betrayal, or self-pity.

“Faramir is with the queen?” she asked. Speechless for a moment, Aragorn nodded his head. She reached her other hand up and touched his cheek, as if to comfort him. He felt his face grow hot. He had more to tell her.

“That is not all,” he said. “Faramir was with us ten days.”

“With _us_?” Eowyn frowned.

“With the queen and I. I was with them -- they were not alone. That is...”

Eowyn rose and walked rapidly up and down the room. She turned to Aragorn and asked a question he was not expecting. “Is my husband your lover?”

He stood and walked to the other side of the room before facing her. “Yes,” he said. “That is, we have made love,” he added lamely. She took the news calmly, and he admired her discipline, but feared the toll it was taking on her.

He sat again on the couch in hope that she would sit next to him. She did, but this time she did not take his hand. Her eyes looked into his searchingly.

“You did not plan it,” she said.

It was not a question. “No,” he said. “It happened.” He returned her gaze and at last saw an emotion blaze in her face. Jealousy. She was jealous of _him_ , not Arwen.

Aragorn thought desperately. He had come prepared to defend the queen, to apologize for what Faramir had done. To reassure Eowyn that Faramir loved her more than anything. Except Gondor. He had prepared no defense for himself.

“You visited him in Ithilien, while I was in Rohan,” she said. He wondered that such cool blue eyes could grow so hot. “Was that when it happened?” He nodded, fearing to speak. Her lips curled in a smile that was more like a snarl. “Why aren’t you with them now?” she asked. “Have they grown tired of you?”

“Please, Eowyn,” he said softly. “I am sorry. If you wish, I will go to him and ask him to come to you at once.”

“That isn’t necessary.” She was cool again. Her hand took his chin and tilted his face up. She was studying him -- her rival. He saw something else in her face: Envy?

“Tell me what you did to him.”

He moistened his lips. “I do not know what you mean, Eowyn.”

Emotion took control of her face again, and now he could see clearly the envy there, and, with it, a burning curiosity.

“I asked you a plain question. Did you kiss him? _How_ did you love him?” She grabbed Aragorn’s hands to keep him facing her, so he could not evade her questions.

“Please do not ask…” he began and stopped when her hands squeezed his painfully. Instead of refusal, he tried delay. “What do you know of men…”

“Men who lie with men? I know everything. I have lived all my life with soldiers.”

“Very well,” he said, and anger blazed in him. His guilt had forced his acquiescence to her probing, but her insistence that he reveal every detail was cruel. He had never thought her cruel.

Her eyes bored into his unflinchingly.

“When he was with Arwen and I, she was the center of our attention. Then I noticed, after the third or fourth night, that he would brush up against me accidentally, but it was no accident.” He felt satisfaction as her chin trembled for a moment.

“So I tried something: I kissed him, and he kissed me back. After that I touched him, stroked him while he made love to Arwen. I touched his buttocks. I pushed my fingers inside him.” Aragorn drew closer to Eowyn as he spoke steadily, hurtfully. Her hands no longer gripped his and lay limply in his lap. “Do you want to hear more?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes were burning.

“Nothing more happened, then. When I went to Ithilien to tell Faramir that Arwen was pregnant, that’s when it started.” A touch of gloating had crept into his voice; he was not aware of it as anger still consumed him.

“Right away I knew something was awry, for Faramir was afraid to be near me. He could not look at me without blushing. He trembled when I was close.”

He paused for a moment. He was getting aroused, reliving his seduction of Faramir. He shifted on the couch to relieve the pressure of his growing erection and took Eowyn’s cold hands in his own. “He wanted me so badly,” he said in a low voice. “But he didn’t know what to do. So he asked me if I had been Boromir’s lover.”

For a moment, Eowyn looked surprised, then controlled it quickly.

Aragorn continued. “So I lied and told him I had kissed Boromir. I asked if he wanted me to show him how I had kissed his brother. Do you want to know how I kissed Faramir?”

Eowyn nodded faintly, exactly as Faramir had done. Aragorn smiled without humor and pressed his lips to Eowyn’s mouth, hard, not the way he kissed a woman. She gasped, and he stood up, pulling her with him, so he could press his body against hers as he had pressed into Faramir. He kept his lips locked on hers, and felt her shudder when he pressed his erection into her hip. He pushed his tongue into her mouth. After a minute, he broke the kiss and tried to slow his breathing.

“Do you want to know what I did to him next?” She did not speak, her face burning with envy and curiosity.

“I took him to the bed,” Aragorn said, and pulled her into the bedroom. He lifted her onto the bed. She felt slender but strong in his arms. He lay down beside her and removed his clothing.

“I stripped him bare,” he whispered, then undressed her. She did not move to help him, nor did she hinder it. Aragorn covered them with a blanket.

“Then I stroked his nipples. Do you know how sensitive his nipples are?” He brushed his fingertips across Eowyn’s nipples, which instantly hardened.

At that, Aragorn’s anger faded. She was not being cruel. She was burning to know, aroused by his seduction of Faramir. He saw for the first time that she was panting, and that sweat glistened on her skin. Yet he did not stop what he was doing.

“Then I sucked on his nipples until he was wild with desire for me,” he said harshly, and took her right nipple into his mouth. She moaned, the first sound she had made since he had kissed her. He twisted the other nipple with his fingers. She thrashed, but her smaller frame could not dislodge him.

He stopped to whisper in her ear. “Then I took his cock into my mouth.” He lowered himself and licked Eowyn’s thighs. Her legs were tightly pressed together, so he pushed them open. He put his fingers on her nipples, squeezing them, and kissed her mound, sliding his tongue down through the golden hair until she cried out. He paused for a moment to say breathlessly, “I did not stop until he came in my mouth,” then continued his assault.

He could feel Eowyn try to keep her hips still. She lost control and thrust upwards at his mouth. Her fingertips brushed his shoulders, then her fingers dug in.

It reminded Aragorn of his next move: he pushed a finger into her womanly passage, added another finger, and thrust hard, licking at her unceasingly. The effect on Eowyn was quick; she cried out, shuddered against him, and went limp.

He moved up so that his nose was touching hers. His erection prodded her thighs. “But that was not the end,” Aragorn whispered. “Shall I tell you what happened next?”

Eowyn’s self control broke, and she said impatiently, “Yes! Just tell me. I must know.”

Aragorn smiled, an alarming smile. “Will you surrender yourself, in return?” he asked. His lips were so close they tickled hers as he spoke.

“I don’t know…” Eowyn said.

Aragorn pulled away from her, and laughed at her cry of need. He lay on her again, pressing her into the bed, then grabbed her and roughly flipped her over onto her stomach. He pulled her hips up so that she was on her hands and knees, and then covered her body with his own so he could whisper in her ear.

“If you want to know, you must surrender.” He took his erection in his hand and rubbed the tip of it between her legs, trailing it over her opening, then moved it up over her clitoris, down, up, down…breathlessly he wondered if he should truly take her as he had taken Faramir, through her back passage. But his cock strove for the wetter, wider opening.

“Yes!”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I surrender.” Eowyn’s voice was unrecognizable.

Before she had finished speaking, Aragorn pushed into her hard, trying to thrust into her as rapidly and deeply as he had thrust into Faramir. He had never made love to a woman this roughly, but Eowyn stayed steady beneath him, her body supporting some of his weight.

Each time he entered her, she cried out, and, as he increased the speed of his thrusts, her cries became continuous. He reached under her, putting more of his weight on her as he balanced himself with only one hand, and rubbed his fingers over her clitoris. Her cries were higher in pitch, and he felt a tremor in her legs.

He lost all sense of himself. Everything was fading away. It was just her, her smell, her taste still in his mouth, her hot, soft flesh surrounding him, her wetness under the fingers of his left hand.

He felt he could no longer speak, but he had made a bargain. “Faramir called my name,” he gasped. “He wanted it harder, deeper.”

Her legs trembled violently; he picked up his pace until it seemed impossible that she would not fall prone below him. But she did not. At last his orgasm took him abruptly. A groan burst out of him as he heard her scream, “Aragorn!”

Her legs collapsed. He rolled her onto her back and kissed her passionately.

“My love,” he said. He covered her face with kisses. “So strong. Like steel. Steelsheen. My love. Eowyn.” She was undone by the endearments; tears started in her eyes.

They pulled apart, exhausted, and lay side by side, holding hands, listening to their breathing slow.

She propped herself up on one elbow and studied him. His eyes were closed and there was a faint smile on his lips. She felt warm and hazy, but she was not going to let his gloating go unpunished.

“You told me more than you wished to, my king,” she said.

Aragorn opened his eyes and looked at her, bemused. “I told you everything,” he said. “How could I have told you _more_ than everything?”

She laughed mockingly. “You didn’t tell me that you had fallen in love with Faramir.”

He rolled on top of her and seized her wrists. “I didn’t tell you that because it isn’t true.”

“I never thought to hear you lying to me, my king.”

He glared at her, and she laughed again, this time warmly. “You cannot hide it from me.” She added teasingly, “My love.”

His glare deepened. She tried to pull out from under him; his weight held her still. After a moment, his glare faded, and he rolled off her, away from her, onto his side.

She moved close to him and held him. “Ah. It’s that bad,” she said. “You think of him constantly. The golden hair on his body. His lips, so soft in the midst of that rough beard. His face, which always looks so serious, so reserved, losing control, crying out your name…”

“Stop!” Aragorn shouted.

He regained command of himself and said, in what he thought was a reasonable tone, “Let’s clean ourselves up. I have to go back to Arwen, and I’ll tell Faramir to come to you now.”

He stood and fetched water and soft cloths, and, silently, they put themselves to rights. Aragorn found his clothes and pulled them on. Eowyn dressed in clean nightclothes, put away her rumpled clothing, combed her hair, then lay back on the bed.

When Aragorn was fully dressed, he sat on the bed and took her hand. She reached with her other hand and stroked his face.

“I won’t tell him if you don’t want me to,” she said.

Aragorn pulled his hand away and smiled a little crookedly.

“There is nothing to tell,” he said, with more emphasis than was needed.

“Of course,” she said softly. He stood, bowed slightly, and left the room.

***

Aragorn walked swiftly to his bedchambers. Eowyn’s teasing had left him unsettled. “It’s _not_ true,” he said, aloud. His voice echoed unconvincingly in the stone-flagged hallway.

When he entered the bedroom, he saw Arwen in bed, deeply asleep. Faramir was visible outside a door that opened into the garden. Aragorn stepped out and inclined his head in greeting.

“Eowyn is well. She is waiting for you to come to bed.”

Faramir looked at him, his face a little weary. He was sitting at a table, outside to take advantage of the warm Spring weather. He sipped from a glass of wine. The ample remains of a meal covered the table.

Aragorn’s stomach let out a growl. He picked up a chicken leg and gnawed it. “Who brought the food?” Aragorn asked, imagining the talkative kitchen maids spying Faramir in Arwen’s bedchambers at night.

“Do not worry; it was fetched by Arwen’s lady-in-waiting, Dirhael,” Faramir reassured him. Arwen’s ladies-in-waiting were the widows of Rangers who had fallen in the War of the Ring, and were devoted to her -- and to him. Aragorn suspected they knew Gilraen’s parentage.

“Something seems to have left you with quite an appetite,” Faramir said. He poured Aragorn a glass of wine and offered it to him. Aragorn sat down, took it, sipped, and finished the chicken.

“So you have told Eowyn everything?” Faramir asked.

“Everything,” Aragorn replied, keeping his voice neutral. He took another sip of wine. “How is Arwen?” he asked, to change the subject.

“She is well. She -- she got hungry. She went to sleep half an hour ago.” Faramir blushed. “And Eowyn?”

“I believe she is yet awake. She may be very hungry, too,” Aragorn said, unthinkingly, relieved when Faramir laughed.

“Then let us take this food to her,” Faramir said.

“You can take it, can’t you? I have need of sleep.” Aragorn finished his wine. Faramir watched Aragorn pick up a hunk of bread and butter it thickly.

“Please, Aragorn,” Faramir pressed. He was not ready to face Eowyn, alone. “You can keep her company at the table. I have had my fill, and could only watch her eat.” Reduced to a matter of simple courtesy, the suggestion could no longer be gainsaid, and Aragorn did not protest further. They gathered up the food and wine and left.

***

They found Eowyn in the sitting room, a robe over her nightclothes. Her eyes lit up at the food, and Faramir concentrated on feeding his starving wife and king, refilling their plates and cups until they were sated.

He noted Aragorn drank far more wine than usual; as Faramir had done the same that night, he could not fault him. The steward felt only a little tipsy, his late meal slowing the effects of the wine.

They stood, and Eowyn took both of them by the hand.

“Now it’s time for bed,” she said, smiling. She tugged at their hands, pulling them towards the bedroom. Aragorn looked at Faramir with a pleading expression.

“Ah, Eowyn, perhaps Aragorn needs to get back to his own bed. It must be four hours till sunrise.”

“Aragorn, you need to get to bed?” Eowyn asked with an innocent expression. He nodded.

“That’s fine! I’ll be able to talk things over with Faramir, tell him _everything_ you told me.” She squeezed Aragorn’s hand meaningfully.

Faramir was ahead of them, going through the bedroom door, so Aragorn turned to her and mouthed: _You wouldn’t_. She mouthed back: _Yes I would_. Defeated, he followed her into the bedroom.

“Faramir, Aragorn has changed his mind. He’ll stay with us awhile.” Eowyn smiled sweetly at them, and Aragorn fought an urge to shake her.

Faramir looked at him uncertainly as Eowyn blew out all of the candles except for one flickering dimly on a dressing table.

“Come, don’t keep me waiting. Take off your clothes.” Eowyn got into the bed and looked at them expectantly.

He was going to kill her, Aragorn vowed, when he got the chance.

He removed his clothes and got into the bed on Eowyn’s right. Faramir undressed and got into the bed on her left. Aragorn and Faramir avoided each other’s eyes and lay down, settling themselves for sleep.

Eowyn sat up a little and said to them cheerfully, “Kiss.”

_Yes, he was going to kill her._

Faramir darted a look at Aragorn and saw resignation in the king’s face. _What was going on?_ The king must have revealed to Eowyn that the steward had been in the king’s bed as much as the queen’s: that much was plain. Nothing else was!

The king was already leaning to kiss him. Faramir moved into the kiss.

As soon as their lips touched, Faramir forgot his discomfort. He had not kissed Aragorn since the king’s visit to North Ithilien, eighteen months earlier. He took Aragorn’s face in his hands and thrust his tongue into the open mouth. Eowyn sighed in his ear. They were kissing directly over her.

She wriggled out from between them and knelt at the end of the bed. _To get a better view_ , Aragorn thought.

While Aragorn kissed him back eagerly enough, Faramir felt hesitation in the man’s touch. _Does he no longer enjoy this_ , Faramir wondered.

He slid his hands down to Aragorn’s hips and pulled them against his. He gasped when their erections touched. _Part of him is still willing, at least._

Abruptly, Eowyn leaned over them, breathing heavily. “What have you two _not_ yet done?” she asked. “Faramir? Have you taken Aragorn?”

The men broke their kiss. _Of course_ , Aragorn tried to get out, but Faramir beat him to it.

“No, I haven’t,” Faramir said. He looked at Aragorn inquiringly. Aragorn scowled.

Eowyn made a sound almost like a squeal. “You should use lots of oil,” she said eagerly to Faramir. “I think it will be his first time.”

“Eowyn, this would all be much easier if you would BE QUIET!” Aragorn’s voice rose to a bellow. Eowyn surprised Faramir with instant complicity. She spoke not a word further, and moved off the bed, perching on an upholstered bench near the foot of it.

Faramir turned again to Aragorn. “There is no need to accommodate her whims, my lord,” he said, fighting a powerful urge to flip Aragorn over and ravish him.

Aragorn smiled. “I think _whim_ is putting it mildly.”

Faramir kissed him gently; Aragorn felt the suppressed excitement in the other man.

“We could try it, stop anytime if you want to,” Faramir whispered. His eyes grew hot and his lips parted. The king had wilted completely at Eowyn’s suggestion, but Faramir’s erection was jabbing into his hip. Faramir’s hands trailed over his buttocks.

“All right, we’ll try it,” Aragorn said, because he wanted to see the elation in Faramir’s face at his words, and he was not disappointed.

Faramir seized him, kissed him passionately, then quickly moved his lips from Aragorn’s mouth, showering kisses, licks, and gentle nips onto the king’s neck and chest. In spite of his worry -- nay, his fear -- Aragorn responded to Faramir’s passion.

Soon Faramir was softly kissing and licking his hardening cock. Aragorn tried to breathe normally as Faramir lavished attention on him, gently stroking the shaft, cupping his balls, the steward’s hot breath ruffling the soft hair on his stomach. He took Aragorn into his mouth and the king clutched the bedclothes, twisting the cloth in his hands.

But Faramir did not apply the pressure Aragorn needed to climax. He swirled his tongue underneath Aragorn’s now hard cock, licked the tip, caressed his balls. Aragorn lost his battle to breathe evenly.

Aragorn looked down at the man’s head between his thighs and grew even harder. The sight of those strong, masculine lips on him was too much for him, light contact or no. He took Faramir’s hair in his hands, fighting the urge to pull the mouth closer. When he thought he could stand no more, Faramir wet a finger and rubbed it along the cleft of his buttocks, not pausing over the opening, not yet.

Faramir removed his mouth for a moment and reached for the oil under the bed, poured it out into his hands, and rubbed his oiled fingers into Aragorn’s cleft, this time letting one finger circle the opening. Slowly, he slid his fingers back and forth, each time spending more time just…there. Faramir slowly slid his finger in halfway, and at the same time sucked hard on Aragorn’s erection.

A low moan came out of the king. He had not expected something like this. The finger moving inside him made him feel vulnerable, helpless. He was paralyzed with the pleasure. The finger slid into him again, all the way in, and he moaned loudly.

The sound made Faramir unbearably hard. He had heard the king in the throes of passion many times, yet never had a sound like this come from his lips. He withdrew his finger to apply more oil to his hands. A groan of disappointment came from Aragorn, but it turned into a squeak when Faramir pushed two fingers in slowly.

Tentatively he pushed them all the way in, then out, in….Aragorn took Faramir by surprise when he placed his feet flat on the bed, lifting his pelvis up, arching his back, only his feet and upper body resting on the bed.

_He’s just about ready_ , Faramir thought, eyes fixed on the king’s arching body. He decreased his suction on Aragorn’s cock, for he was not going to let him come, not yet. Sweat broke out on his face at the thought of giving Aragorn what he craved. He continued his slow stimulation of Aragorn’s cock and back passage.

A sobbing moan burst out of Aragorn, distracting him. “Faramir,” the king groaned, “I can’t take any more. Please. I can’t.” Faramir felt a pang of guilt at the king’s plea. “Please, finish me. Faramir.”

“Soon, my…king.” Faramir whispered. He caught himself before saying _my love_. The king desired him, yes, but he did not love him. Loved to take him perhaps, to kiss him -- another groan broke into his thoughts, and Faramir stopped his teasing.

Faramir removed his fingers, moving up to cover Aragorn with his body, and was surprised again when Aragorn swung his legs over Faramir’s shoulders, scooting his buttocks against Faramir’s crotch. His knees rested on Faramir’s shoulders, his calves on Faramir’s back, ankles crossed. His legs pulled Faramir close.

Faramir struggled to grab the oil, coated himself, placed the tip of his cock right…there.

Aragorn was moaning; Faramir could no longer hear it. There was a buzzing in his ears. He pushed the tip of his erection in, slowly, slowly, fighting the urge to ram himself in up to the hilt. Aragorn had never taken him this way; the king had always taken him from the back. Seeing his lover face to face increased Faramir’s arousal sharply.

Faramir watched, fascinated, at the expression on Aragorn’s face: his eyes were tightly shut, his mouth open, and he moaned with abandon. His legs urged Faramir to move faster. Faramir pulled out slowly, pushed in slowly. Aragorn’s eyes opened and looked at Faramir with such lust, the steward almost came at that moment.

Unconsciously, Faramir had increased his speed. One goal filled his mind and body: pounding Aragorn into the bed. He grabbed Aragorn’s erection with his left hand and grasped Aragorn’s left thigh with his right hand, pulling it tight against his chest, holding Aragorn in place.

Aragorn was coming apart. Each thrust of Faramir’s cock inside him set off an explosion of pleasure that had no time to fade before the next thrust. And yet he could not get enough, moving his pelvis to meet each thrust as it came. Faramir’s hand enclosed Aragorn’s erection, slid on it, squeezed it; Faramir’s cock drove into him. The two sensations together made him want to scream.

Then Faramir pushed down on him, bent him double, kissed his lips hard. Faramir’s hand, still between them, moved faster on Aragorn’s cock.

Aragorn felt pinned, helpless, and the edges of his vision dimmed. He tried to kiss Faramir, but could not get enough air. One more thrust, and a loud cry burst from him as his orgasm convulsed him, his come covering their chests. Faramir thrust deeply one last time and gave a strangled moan, coming inside Aragorn’s body. He pulled away, letting Aragorn’s legs straighten, and they collapsed in each other’s arms.

When they could hear something aside from their own harsh breathing, they were aware of a peculiar sound in the room. Eowyn. Weeping?

The men looked up, alarmed. Eowyn came off the bench and almost fell on them both, tears running down her face.

Faramir’s heart lurched, but Aragorn knew the meaning of her tears; he grabbed Eowyn and pulled her between them. His come stained her nightclothes.

“So beautiful,” Eowyn said, touching Faramir’s cheek, then Aragorn’s. “The two of you. I did not know. You are both so beautiful.” Faramir felt an urge to weep with her, though he did not know the reason for her sadness. Aragorn’s eyes grew red.

“I am sorry,” she mumbled to Aragorn. “I should not have done that.”

“It’s all right,” Aragorn said, touching her cheek. “I probably would have done the same, if I had been in your place.” She shook her head, wordless.

“Eowyn, what are you sorry for?” Faramir was baffled. His look of bewilderment made her break down again, and she gulped for air between sobs. Aragorn gripped her tightly and stroked her hair, whispering, “Hush. Hush. It’s all right.”

He looked up at Faramir and smiled faintly. “She’s sorry for blackmailing me into lying with you while she watched,” he said.

Faramir took in a deep, shocked breath. “You threatened to tell -- about Gilraen?” he shouted at Eowyn. He staggered off the bed and clenched his fists.

Aragorn looked horrified. “No, no! Faramir! You know she would not do that. Never. It was not that.”

Faramir collapsed onto the bed, his anger draining out of him, leaving him exhausted. Eowyn’s sobbing had burst out louder at the accusation. Her face turned towards Aragorn’s chest, and her body shook.

Faramir touched her back. “Eowyn. I’m sorry I said that -- please forgive me.”

_But what, then?_ He pulled his hand away from her, as if burned, and demanded of Aragorn, “Then what was it?”

“Nothing so important. She figured out, don’t ask me how, that I had fallen in love with you, that was all.” Aragorn rocked Eowyn back and forth gently.

Faramir looked at him impatiently. “Please, Aragorn. What was it about?”

“That _is_ what it is about. I love you. I don’t love you, I adore you. I think about you day and night.” Aragorn released Eowyn and grabbed Faramir’s arms. “I see you when I close my eyes.” He gave a bark of laughter. “Nay, I see you when my eyes are open, although you are not there. I crave your touch, your smell, your voice.”

Faramir closed his eyes and shook his head. The words fell like a lash, inflaming his raw emotions. He had never expected to hear the king taunt him like this: Aragorn had discovered that Faramir loved him, and was throwing it in his face.

“For the gods’ sake, Aragorn, do not do this to me.” Faramir pressed his hands over his eyes.

He felt his arms yanked hard and was staring into the face of Eowyn. “He loves you! What does he have to do to prove it? Exile me to Tol Brandir?”

Aragorn’s eyes gleamed. “That might not be a bad idea,” he said. Eowyn looked at Aragorn and they both laughed, falling on each other. Faramir watched them thrash helplessly in the grip of their mirth.

Faramir felt the fog lifting. He smiled, and it turned into a grin. “Tol Brandir may not be far enough. I hear the Sea of Rhun is pleasant.”

His mild joke caused new paroxysms in Aragorn and Eowyn. Tears ran down their faces. They gripped each other, foreheads pressed together. Gradually they quieted, stopped laughing, and kissed, a deep, passionate kiss that left Faramir wide-eyed.

“What is this?” Faramir cried. “You two have lost your senses!”

Aragorn looked up, and said, “We have lost our senses about _you_.” He looked at Eowyn and they howled with laughter again.

“I give up on you two,” Faramir said with mock sternness. He rose from the bed and yawned, stretched, yawned again. “I could get more sense out of Ioreth.” He went to wash himself and dress. “I think I’ll go see what Arwen is doing,” he said loudly, to no one in particular.

“Wait,” Aragorn said.

“We’ll come with you,” Eowyn said.  



	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king and queen of Gondor are without a heir; luckily, there is a loyal steward close at hand. Alas, he'd rather be sleeping with the king. Warnings: Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.

_Warnings: Homoerotic content, sibcest. No violence or bad language._

When an exhausted, yet elated, Faramir stumbled into the king and queen’s bedchamber later that night, he found Arwen gone. A lady-in-waiting directed him to the royal nursery. There he found Arwen holding a flushed, feverish Gilraen. Morwen and Theodwyn were also showing signs of illness.

All plans came to a halt as the four parents nursed their children back to health. Aragorn spent each night in the nursery, and the other three took turns keeping watch with him. While the illness was not serious, the four of them were left somber; it could have been something deadly.

When a week passed, and the children were recovered, Eowyn’s and Faramir’s visit to Minas Tirith came to an end. They went back home to North Ithilien, all thought of the erotic escapades that had taken place driven, temporarily, far from their minds.

***

The months passed swiftly, and nearly three years were to pass before Eowyn and Faramir were to return, together, to Minas Tirith. Faramir made brief visits to the city to take counsel, but had not seen the king and queen. Each time, Aragorn and Arwen were gone, once on a voyage down the Anduin and along the coast, spending two months in Dol Amroth. Gilraen had gone with them.

Eowyn had not left North Ithilien, occupying herself with turning their rough refuge into a home. Another daughter, Rian, had been born to them. When Eowyn looked at her daughter’s dark hair and blue-grey eyes, she questioned who had fathered the girl, born nine months after their visit to Minas Tirith. “Aragorn _cannot_ be her father,” she reminded herself sternly whenever the doubt rose in her.

Their current visit to Minas Tirith had no purpose that they knew of; the king had summoned them without explanation. It was February, and the weather was chill at night, so the steward and his wife resolved to leave the children at home in the care of their nurses.

When they arrived at the city, a drenching rain was falling, and, although it was only noon, the sky was dark. Only a few braved the weather to see the travelers from afar enter the city. Faramir and Eowyn were so muffled in their cloaks that they were unrecognized.

Leaving trails of water on the stone floors behind them, Eowyn and Faramir were shown to their rooms, shedding wet garments to warm themselves at the fire. The chambermaid left to fetch hot water for bathing.

An hour later, Faramir was pouring hot water over Eowyn’s head as she sat in a large copper tub. “I think you could squeeze in here,” she said. The hot water had washed away all of her aches and pains from the journey. Faramir smiled and drenched her again.

She spluttered, and said, “Your turn is coming. Remember that!”

He regarded her fondly. She had been so young when they had married that, even now, seven years later, she was not yet thirty.

He was forty-two and was at the peak of his beauty, something he was not aware of. Eowyn watched with amusement the darting glances at her husband, who combined the hardiness of a man of Gondor with an unusual grace.

Faramir went in search of a robe for his wife. As soon as he left Eowyn’s presence, he felt wistful. They were in the same chambers they had stayed in during their visit three years earlier. He would have been dejected, then, if he had known that his parting from Aragorn was to last three years. And he had another sorrow that weighed heavily.

He picked up the robe and smiled at it, thinking of Eowyn.

He had feared the king’s revelations to Eowyn would cause a strain between them. It had not come to pass; learning he had been the king’s lover had increased Eowyn’s appetite for him. After that visit, no part of his body was unravished by her. He was surprised the night she had slipped a finger in him while kissing him, breathless with both fear and anticipation: fear, that it was simply a whim on her part.

Although there was much love and trust between them, he could not bring himself to ask her for those caresses. But she had licked his nipples, taken him into her mouth, pushed a finger into him, not just once, but on many occasions. She relished turning him into a helpless slave to desire. And she had gotten much too good at it!

He brought her the robe, wrapped her in it when she stood, and gratefully sank into the warm water when she stepped out of the bath. As soon as he was settled, a bucket of warm water drenched him. “Got you!” Eowyn said. Her laugh echoed in the stone-flagged room. She ran out the door when Faramir splashed her.

Faramir closed his eyes, leaning back in the warm water, feeling again the shadow that had fallen on his heart. There were two in Minas Tirith he hungered to see, two he tried never to think of. Gilraen and Eldarion, the two children born to Arwen. Eldarion, born eight days after his daughter Rian, he had never seen. Gilraen was now four years old, and he had only seen her once.

His son, his daughter. He wept for the children who would never know him as a father, letting the water streaming down his face hide his grief.

***

The next day, when Faramir and Eowyn had recovered from their journey, Arwen and Aragorn joined them in their chambers after the evening meal.

While the four were delighted to be together again, too much unfinished business hung between them. Arwen and Eowyn had had no time alone since Aragorn told Eowyn the secret of his children’s parentage, and it hindered the usual affectionate give and take between the two women.

Faramir likewise felt awkward around the king. Three years earlier, pressured by Eowyn, the king had confessed he loved Faramir, but the events following had left no time to discuss it, even mention it.

The situation reminded Faramir, uncomfortably, of his relationship with Boromir. When Faramir discovered the passion his brother had for him, both had retreated from the other, and it was buried, hidden, for years. Would the same happen with Aragorn? He could not bear to go through years of desiring the king, spending time with him only on matters of state, never seeing that body above him with the blue-grey eyes on fire…

“Faramir? Faramir?” Eowyn said. He saw a tense look on her face, and snapped to attention, for little broke his wife’s serenity.

Arwen looked at the three of the race of Men she loved most in the world: Eowyn, Faramir, and most of all her husband, the greatest of men now living.

With one failing: he had been unable to father a child on her after three years of marriage, so she had taken matters into her own hands. She regretted the pain that had befallen all of them as a result of her actions. Her heart still ached at a memory from three years earlier, when she had seen Faramir clutch the ailing Gilraen to his chest, tears in his eyes, as he thought no one observed him. _May the Valar forgive me for what I have done to them._ One day, she would put matters to rights. Not yet, for she wanted another child, and so Faramir had been summoned.

As Eowyn knew of her husband’s role in the children’s births, Arwen and Aragorn agreed the matter must be put before them both this time, asking for Eowyn’s sanction as well as the steward’s. Aragorn asked Arwen to make the request, and she consented. He watched her rise and grasp Eowyn’s hand in her right, Faramir’s hand in her left.

He let his eyes linger on Faramir for a moment longer then necessary. All evening long, he had felt the steward’s gaze slide over him, yet a veil was between them. His declaration of passion to Faramir had happened so long ago, sometimes he wondered if it really had happened. And Faramir did not return that passion, it seemed.

Faramir may have been pleased, flattered, perhaps, but he had not said a single word of love to the king. “He likes to see me in his thrall,” Aragorn thought with growing bitterness. “If I fall in love with him, that makes it all the sweeter. Now I am merely a memory. Another man he has discarded.”

For a brief, sour moment, Aragorn wondered if Faramir had made love to him as a substitute for Boromir. He knew the thought was unworthy of the steward, and quashed it. And yet, he could not quell his fear that the younger man had used him, in some way.

Aragorn turned away as the queen gently made her request to Faramir and Eowyn. He could not bear to watch, for he knew he would see the answer in their faces immediately -- neither would dissemble. For Arwen’s happiness, may they agree, he breathed silently. May they agree.

He looked up and saw Eowyn and Faramir embrace the queen, and let his head droop in relief. It was done. The king and queen of Gondor would have another heir.

***

The business settled, the four sat around the fire, sipping wine.

They were freer now with each other, and Aragorn felt some small comfort when Faramir embraced him after embracing Arwen. On soft couches, lit only by firelight, they talked easily, with many silences, as old friends do.

“Perhaps this could be enough,” Aragorn thought. Faramir sat next to him, and he could feel the man’s thigh touching his. He moved away, the softness of the cushions throwing them together again. “Friendship from such a man should be enough for me,” he thought. He smiled softly -- lecturing himself was not something he did often these days. It made him feel young again.

He heard Eowyn’s clear, infectious laugh at something Arwen said. Arwen stood and tapped her goblet, the ringing sound bringing them to silence.

“My lords!” Arwen said. Her face was mischievous. “Eowyn has made a suggestion, and I have agreed with her. She shall join us tonight.” Arwen looked at Faramir and Aragorn for agreement, and saw only stunned faces. She laughed and sat back down, whispering in Eowyn’s ear. Eowyn whispered back, and Arwen stood again.

“Unless, Elessar, you were planning on keeping her company again,” Arwen said. There was no mistaking her teasing now. The two men stared at the two women: they had been outflanked, outmaneuvered. Made fools of!

A silence fell over them, and Aragorn broke it by fetching more wine and refilling their glasses. The idle chat started again, and he sought to calm himself. Eowyn joining them had not startled the king. His distress sprung from the expectation that he would lie with Arwen and Faramir, as well.

Seeing Faramir in the throes of passion, again. How could he watch, unmoved? In his agitation, he dropped his glass, and a minor commotion followed as the mess was cleared and a new glass filled for him.

***

Aragorn was not surprised when the women began it. They kissed each other, chastely, joined hands, and left to the bedroom. Both stopped to look at the men before leaving the room. They are quite sure of themselves, Aragorn thought, amused in spite of himself. They know we will come running!

He had to admit that seeing the two women together was rousing him. He looked at Faramir, and saw the younger man eyeing the doorway to the bedroom with excitement.

He stood up and somewhat awkwardly offered his hand to Faramir. Faramir blushed as he took it. “I’m making a mess of this,” Aragorn thought. “Perhaps I could plead illness. Old age.”

Faramir stood and Aragorn considered whether he should give him the same chaste kiss the women had shared. Before he could screw himself up to do it, Faramir turned to the bedroom.

When they entered, the two women were undressed and in the large bed. A candle flickered dimly on a low table, and the fire in the fireplace had turned to embers.

He stood by the doorway with Faramir as the two women kissed again. They kissed slowly and gently, with frequent pauses, lips brushing lips, each of them caressing the other’s face with soft fingertips. They were unbelievably slow and gentle, and Aragorn suddenly felt that, for all these years, Arwen must have found his touches unbearably harsh, rough. He took a step towards the bed. Faramir stopped him, hissing in his ear, “Sit.”

Faramir pulled him to an upholstered bench. “Just watch,” he said in a faint voice.

Watch! Aragorn realized the full extent of the torture in store for him. The blanket covering the women slipped away as their fingertips glided lower. When Arwen’s hands lightly touched Eowyn’s breasts, he felt himself harden. Eowyn touched Arwen’s breasts, and once again the incredibly slow, light strokes were shared between them.

The minutes slipped by as the two men watched lovemaking in slow motion. Twenty minutes passed, and the women were still lightly stroking each other, lips brushing cheeks, eyes. Aragorn was breathing audibly, and his hand moved to take hold of himself and relieve the pressure. He stopped, checked by the steward next to him. If Faramir uncovered his own erection, he couldn’t bear it; he would lose control and cover the steward’s cock with his mouth. So Aragorn kept himself covered, and silently implored Faramir to do the same.

The women were not only slow, they were silent, though once in a while a deep breath could be heard. Then, without warning, their movements changed. He saw Arwen’s fingertips close tightly on Eowyn’s erect nipples, Arwen pressing her mouth hard to Eowyn’s, thrusting in her tongue.

Eowyn gasped loudly and her back arched. When Arwen took a nipple in her mouth, the men saw Eowyn’s body tremble. Arwen placed her hands on either side of Eowyn’s small, full, breasts, and squeezed them together, pushing the nipples close to each other. Arwen took both nipples in her mouth and sucked hard. Eowyn writhed and Arwen moved on top of her to still her movements. She lifted her hips so she was on her knees, her upper body resting on Eowyn.

Since the men were near the foot of the bed, the sight was devastating. Looking at Arwen from behind, her buttocks in the air, her legs spread, was too much for the king. Without realizing it, he stood and moved toward the bed. Faramir grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

“Wait,” Faramir said. Sweat sheened his face.

The two of them sat. Eowyn’s writhing had changed the women’s’ position -- they were sideways to the two men. They could see Eowyn’s fingers pinching Arwen’s nipples.

Arwen moved a leg so her knee was between Eowyn’s thighs, and both men groaned softly when Eowyn moved her hips to rub against Arwen.

The slowness and gentleness were gone. The women were breathing loudly, moving all over the bed, as they sought to caress each other.

Abruptly, Arwen broke off from sucking on Eowyn’s nipples, her tongue aggressively roaming as if she wanted to lick Eowyn all over. Aragorn groaned in anticipation and shifted on the bench, trying to relieve the pressure in his leggings. Faramir was restless as well. Both men were leaning forward as if about to start a race, their hands on the bench, bracing them.

At last Arwen’s tongue reached her destination, the golden hair between Eowyn’s thighs. Slowly and deliberately, she licked around and near Eowyn’s center of desire, coming closer and closer as the blond woman moaned. Arwen moved her hands up and squeezed Eowyn’s nipples, hard. Finally, Arwen licked directly between Eowyn’s thighs.

Eowyn’s moans mixed with her harsh breathing, Arwen’s hair spilling over her belly and thighs. Arwen moved her right hand off Eowyn’s breast, spreading her fingers on the left hand to caress both nipples. Both men suppressed a gasp when Arwen placed her free hand between her own thighs and rubbed frantically.

Unconsciously, Aragorn gripped Faramir’s hand next to him and squeezed it hard, preparing himself to watch Eowyn orgasm; he slumped in disappointment when Eowyn heaved Arwen away and pushed her flat. Arwen was on her back, her feet towards the men again. Eowyn climbed atop her, then turned to face the queen’s feet. For a moment the men were puzzled, then cried out when Eowyn’s tongue licked between Arwen’s thighs, and Arwen pulled Eowyn’s hips over her head and reached with her tongue to lick the soft pink folds.

The two women were locked together, their cries muffled by their hair and flesh. Aragorn realized he had grasped Faramir’s hand when he felt the steward give it a painful squeeze.

Fortunately, the men were released from their torture shortly. They watched Eowyn insert two fingers into Arwen and plunge them in swiftly; they could tell from Arwen’s movements she was doing the same to Eowyn, although they could not see it. Within moments both women came with breathless screams. They fell apart, then drew back together, side by side, foreheads touching, eyes closed, arms wrapped around each other.

Aragorn let out an enormous breath. Faramir’s hand in his was soaked with their sweat. He let the steward’s hand go and wiped his own hand on his leggings, gasping painfully when he accidentally touched his erection.

Faramir stood and went to his wife, caressing her cheek. He covered the two women with a blanket. The candle had gone out and a red glow from the embers in the fireplace lit the room.

Aragorn rose and kissed Arwen’s brow. Her eyes opened and she looked at him sleepily. “Later, my love,” she mumbled. “Later.” Faramir got only incoherent sounds out of Eowyn.

Aragorn could not resist -- he bent down to kiss Arwen, to taste Eowyn on her lips. “Must sleep,” Arwen said. Her eyes closed again.

The men stepped back from the bed. Aragorn started to speak, but Faramir beckoned him out of the room. In the sitting room, the painfully aroused men stood by a couch to talk. “I think they want to sleep now,” Faramir rasped, standing awkwardly. Aragorn nodded, gestured to Faramir to follow him, and headed to the royal bedchambers.

***

When they entered the rooms, Aragorn realized with a shock that it was the first time he had been alone with the steward, with no fear of interruption, for three years. He kept his face turned away from Faramir, afraid that his aching need could be seen in his eyes.

Aragorn gestured towards a bed in a curtained alcove. “Take that,” he said, and moved towards his own bed.

Faramir went to the bed and sat on it, gritting his teeth as his breeches compressed his erection painfully. It was the same curtained alcove where Arwen and Aragorn had first seduced him. Five years ago now? The curtains were open and he could see Aragorn, in the bright moonlight, undress by his bed, twenty feet away. The bed of the king and queen was nearly as large as a small house, with a carved wooden headboard and footboard that rose to the high ceiling. The embroidered draperies that enclosed the sides were pulled back.

Faramir stripped off his clothes, sighing when the pressure was relieved on his groin, then covered himself with a blanket.

The king kept his back to him as he undressed. Faramir wondered why the king wished to hide his arousal. When the king was down to his breeches, Faramir croaked out, “Aragorn. Come here.”

The king hesitated, then turned and walked to him. He stopped outside the open curtains, four feet from Faramir. “What is it?” Aragorn asked. His eyes looked at the wall, not Faramir’s face. The bulge in his breeches was apparent.

Faramir laughed ruefully. “I won’t be able to sleep.” Faramir touched himself through the blanket, then uncovered himself to reveal his erection, grasping it with one hand.

Aragorn did not move to Faramir, though he ached to put his mouth over him, suck on him, feel the come pulse down the back of his throat.

Faramir looked up at him beseechingly. “Please. Touch me.” He pushed the blanket off completely, lying naked on the bed. He spread his arms and legs wide, to welcome Aragorn into his embrace.

He felt rising anguish as Aragorn stood silently, not making a move towards him. He had expected that, eventually, he and Aragorn would make love. Aragorn’s silence frightened him. The king did not seem to want, or expect, Faramir’s overtures.

Faramir’s mind filled with doubt. He was sure that Aragorn had never slept with another man, only he. Was Aragorn disgusted by him? Had he decided that his bedding of Faramir three years back was something to be cast away as shameful, an aberration, unnatural…

While Faramir’s mind considered this disaster, his hand had other ideas, squeezing his erection, pumping up and down. Come leaked out of the tip and made his skin slick. “Aragorn,” he murmured, his eyes locked on the king’s face. _Come to me, my love. I am dying with need._ His hand pumped faster and faster. His glance was caught by Aragorn’s erection, outlined under the tight cloth, and this pushed him over the edge. He came, semen erupting over his lap and hand.

Aragorn stood, frozen. Faramir had hardly touched him since his arrival, not even a kiss, and his demand for physical release left the king feeling empty, bereft. Was he nothing more to Faramir than a body to be used for pleasure, then put aside? The man had no feelings for him. A hollowness filled him. Aragorn took a step back, then another. Finally, he turned swiftly and climbed into his bed, removing his breeches under the cover of the blankets.

The king’s erection throbbed, reminding him of the body steps away. He could go to him, thrust his cock into Faramir’s mouth…Finally, his hand wrapped around his erection, and with a few swift strokes he came violently, struggling to be silent.

Faramir was crushed when the king stepped back, rejecting him. The semen on his thighs and belly turned cold and sticky. He pulled the blankets to his chin, staring up at the ceiling with dry, burning eyes. He thought he heard Aragorn giving himself release. The bedclothes rustled, and Aragorn gave a suppressed groan.

Faramir’s eyes welled with tears. The king no longer loved him. He struggled to swallow his sobs, his breathing loud in the small alcove. Across the room, the king heard his harsh breathing and assumed the steward was once again pleasuring himself with his hand.

Aragorn closed his eyes and prayed for sleep.

***

Two days passed, and each night Faramir made love to the queen. Aragorn did not join them, pleading pressing business, staying late in his study each night. He did not know if Eowyn joined Arwen and the steward, and he did not ask. The three of them stayed out of the royal bedchambers. Every night, Aragorn went to bed alone; each morning, when he woke, Arwen was at his side.

He avoided her gaze, the tenderness in her large blue eyes making him want to blurt out the pain.

He had thought Faramir was his lover in all senses of the word; instead Faramir had used him. His mind went back to Faramir’s tale of his lover, Mardil, who had seduced the steward when he was sixteen. Faramir had confessed to the king that he could not hate Mardil, for he had used him for his resemblance to Boromir. That he has done so unwittingly did not excuse him, Faramir felt.

And Faramir’s other lovers? A doubting voice whispered in Aragorn’s mind. The steward had spent years in remote Ithilien, solely in the company of men. Aragorn was supposed to believe he had never laid a hand on one of them? Even now, while Ithilien was resettled, Faramir commanded a large force of Ithilien Rangers, who had turned from warfare to forestry.

While Aragorn sat over his papers and seethed, Faramir lost himself in sex. Arwen and Eowyn were eager to explore everything that could be done between a man and two women, and Faramir gave himself completely to their exploits.

Each night left him exhausted, nearly stunned. He was grateful, for it blocked the pain of Aragorn’s rejection. He thought back to Boromir’s young men, and smiled sadly to himself. _Ah, brother, I understand now. It does help to keep a heart from breaking._

Another night passed, and Aragorn stayed away. The misery might have continued indefinitely, if not for Arwen. Eowyn had told her of all that had passed between the two men three years earlier. The queen resolved to take action.

On the fourth night, after Arwen and Eowyn and Faramir were caressing each other in bed, but before any of them had found release, Arwen executed her plan. She was between Faramir and Eowyn; both of them were kissing her, one on each ear, their hands roaming over her body. She was panting with desire when she pulled away.

“I wonder if Estel has come down to bed. I’m worried about him; he’s been working long hours. I think we should go see him. Disturb his sleep.” She smiled wickedly; Eowyn, knowing of the plot, smiled back. Faramir said nothing.

The two women rose and dressed in the minimum of clothing required to get to the royal chambers in decency. Faramir stood with them, making no move to dress, until the two women stopped and pointedly waited for him.

He followed them down the hall, dreading what lay ahead.

***

Aragorn woke to two pairs of lips on his face. Soft giggling filled the darkness. “Estel, wake up,” Arwen said. She and Eowyn surrounded Aragorn, breathing on his neck, his ears. Faramir sat near the end of the bed, looking at anything other than Aragorn.

Arwen was to his left, kissing him. On his right, Eowyn pulled Faramir next to her, her back to Aragorn. The women stripped off their clothing, and, giggling, Eowyn undressed Faramir. Aragorn was already naked. After years of sleeping in his clothes, wrapped in his cloak, he could not get enough of the feel of clean sheets on his skin.

In spite of his foul mood, the women’s bare flesh sliding over him, their hair tickling his chest, aroused Aragorn. He felt himself grow hard, and it humiliated him, for he did not want Faramir to see him in such a state.

He thought of the women’s torture of him four days earlier, and his breathing quickened when they kissed over him. He looked at Faramir, whose eyes were fixed on him. Faramir looked guiltily away. The naked steward was aroused, his cock stiff.

Aragorn was disgusted with himself. He still craved Faramir, and, even now, he was tempted to take him in his arms and make love to him.

Eowyn crawled over him to get to Arwen, leaving him next to Faramir. The steward’s eyes stared hungrily.

“I suppose you want help with that,” Aragorn said coldly, looking at Faramir’s cock. The steward’s gaze roved over him, fastening on Aragorn’s erection, then looked away. Aragorn snorted. “You want only one thing, don’t you?” he whispered to Faramir.

He moved closer to the steward’s side. He did not lay his hands on the steward, merely inched nearer until their erections touched. Faramir gasped, and moved to embrace Aragorn, but Aragorn pushed his arms away.

Aragorn began to enjoy the situation: Faramir might not care for him, but Aragorn could still affect him. Control him. He imagined Faramir on his knees, begging for release. Or, better yet, under him, his legs wrapped around Aragorn, so that Aragorn could watch the pleading on his face…

He stood, lifting the startled Faramir in his arms, carrying him to the bed Faramir had spent a miserable night on four days earlier. Aragorn tossed the steward roughly on the bed, then yanked the alcove’s curtains closed.

Faramir lay speechless on the bed where Aragorn had thrown him. The naked king approached him across the bed, on his hands and knees, until his mouth was only inches from Faramir’s cock. “Do you want me?” he asked, staring into Faramir’s eyes. When Faramir whispered ”Yes,” Aragorn snorted derisively.

Both men turned their heads, hearing the women rise, discussing a raid on the King’s House larders. “I’m so hungry!” they heard Eowyn say. The door to the bedroom opened and closed, leaving them in silence.

Aragorn turned back to Faramir, satisfied to note that the steward already had a pleading expression.

Faramir looked at the crouching king with awe. As he watched Aragorn on his hands and knees, coming closer and closer, the muscles sliding under Aragorn’s skin made him breathless. The king’s hair tumbled over his shoulders, and his blue-grey eyes were hot. The scornful look in Aragorn’s face did not dampen his ardour.

Thoughts flickered through the turmoil in Faramir’s mind. The king found the steward’s unnatural desires disgusting, that much was plain. From the look on the king’s face, Faramir feared Aragorn meant to humiliate him, punish him, in some way.

But he could not stop his body from responding to the sight in front of him. He was helpless in the grip of those eyes. He licked dry lips. How would the king punish him? Whatever happened, he would not humiliate himself by pleading for mercy…

Thought fled when his ankles were grasped and he was pulled flat on the bed. Aragorn’s body covered him. Faramir involuntarily jerked upwards and felt Aragorn pull away. Faramir fought the urge to push himself against Aragorn.

“So, what do you want?” Aragorn asked. He trailed a fingertip over Faramir’s lips. The insolent tone of his voice made Faramir shiver. “Do you want me inside you?” Faramir groaned when Aragorn ground his hips into him. “Sucking your cock? Or perhaps you want me on my knees?”

Faramir swallowed. What would be the safest answer, with the least risk of punishment? He looked into Aragorn’s face and knew it was hopeless. He wanted Aragorn inside him so badly nothing else mattered. “Inside me.”

“Of course,” Aragorn said. His voice was neutral. “Are you ready for me?” His face belied his concerned words. Not waiting for an answer, he flipped Faramir over and pulled him up onto his hands and knees. Faramir felt a touch of panic. Was the king going to take him with no preparation? His breath came faster and his heart pounded.

Aragorn heard the hitch in Faramir’s breathing and smiled.

Faramir repressed a plea when Aragorn spread his cheeks roughly. When the touch came, he nearly screamed. Not a rough entry, but a wet tongue sliding over his opening. The tongue pressed into him and he moaned. He thought he heard the king snicker.

Aragorn, sitting back on his haunches, pulled Faramir closer, so that his folded legs were under the steward’s hips, forcing them up. He leaned forward to lick Faramir’s opening again, sliding his hands underneath the steward to caress his nipples. His hair tickled Faramir’s back. He pointedly did not touch the steward’s pulsing erection.

The tongue thrust into him again and Faramir let out a sound that startled him. It was high-pitched, helpless, the sound a woman might make. He felt Aragorn’s breath huff against him in laughter, and even that made him moan. Aragorn grinned and blew across the wet, aroused skin.

Faramir’s determination to not plead was crumbling. “Aragorn,” he moaned. The tongue flicked at him, pressed into him. Fingers pinched his nipples. His erection brushed against Aragorn’s legs.

“Was there something you wanted?” Aragorn asked. His tongue pushed in again.

“Yes,” Faramir said in a strangled voice. “I want you inside of me.” He tried not to groan as the tongue entered him again. Instead of thrusting in and out, Aragorn’s tongue stayed in and probed for a while, and another helpless moan burst from him. He felt Aragorn’s saliva running down his body, onto his balls.

“I’m not sure you really want that,” Aragorn said.

“I do!”

“Will you ask nicely?” Aragorn said in a maddeningly calm voice. Faramir felt absurdly close to tears, and a small sob escaped him.

Aragorn could not continue the torture; his own erection was ready to burst. The sight of Faramir kneeling in front of him, his helpless moans, had aroused him painfully. He licked his fingers and dampened his cock, being careful not to touch himself for too long.

Roughly he rolled Faramir onto his back, still avoiding Faramir’s erection. Three years earlier, Faramir had entered him face to face, and the king wanted to try the same, as it would let him feast his eyes on Faramir’s imploring face.

He pulled Faramir’s hips close to his crotch, then draped the steward’s legs over his shoulders, pushing down with his chest so that Faramir’s body was bent in half. Faramir did not struggle at all; he was almost limp. Aragorn moved the tip of his erection to Faramir’s opening, still soaked with his spit, and slowly, carefully, slid in. Faramir gasped and writhed, so Aragorn put his arms outside of Faramir’s bent legs, holding him in place.

Slowly, Aragorn pulled out a little, then pushed back in. He struggled to keep his face impassive while Faramir’s body clenched and slid around his cock maddeningly. Aragorn increased his pace, watching the steward’s head thrash from side to side. His hands clutched at Aragorn’s back, his fingers digging in. Faramir’s erection pressed into his belly. Aragorn snaked one arm between them and lightly stroked the hard cock.

Fighting back the urge to thrust mindlessly into the body beneath him, the king watched Faramir intently, looking for any sign that the steward was going to come. He thrust harder and faster until he saw Faramir clench his face.

At that moment, Aragorn stopped moving. He was inside Faramir; his erection screamed to thrust against the tight wet flesh surrounding it. He let go of Faramir’s cock.

Faramir focused dazed eyes on Aragorn’s face. Aragorn leaned forward, bending him even more, and kissed him on the lips. “Had enough?” he asked. His cock throbbed inside of Faramir. He made one leisurely thrust; Faramir moaned. “Do you want more?” the king demanded.

Ah, thought Faramir, my punishment begins. “Yes, I want more,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. A slow thrust made him gasp.

“Convince me,” Aragorn said. He kissed Faramir hard, his teeth bruising the steward’s lips. He thrust his tongue into Faramir’s mouth, and Faramir sucked on it desperately. When Aragorn thrust again, he almost bit the tongue.

“I’ll do anything,” Faramir said. Once, long ago, there had been a Faramir who was never going to ask for mercy; he felt sympathy for this former, naive self. “Tell me what to do.”

Aragorn paused, his mind and heart racing. “Beg, then.”

“I beg you,” Faramir said, his words turned to moans by another slow thrust. Aragorn’s hand reached between them and enclosed his cock again.

“Go on,” Aragorn growled. He thrust again in a regular rhythm. “Keep begging.” His hand moved faster on Faramir’s erection, sliding easily because of the sweat that soaked both men.

“I beg you, please…” Faramir gasped as Aragorn moved faster. He felt sweat fall from Aragorn’s face onto his own. “I beg you, Aragorn. To love me. Please. Love me.”

“Love you?” Aragorn gasped. He was losing control; he felt his release building in him, unstoppable.

Faramir screamed out, “Yes. I love you!” His come soaked Aragorn’s chest, his body convulsed, and the contractions forced Aragorn over the edge. He came with his lips on Faramir’s, both their mouths open, panting for breath.

Aragorn slid out of Faramir’s body, letting the steward’s cramped legs stretch out. Aragorn breathed his words into Faramir’s mouth. “I do love you,” he said. “So much…you don’t have to beg for it. By the gods, Faramir, don’t you know that I love you?” He crushed Faramir’s mouth under his, his arms around Faramir’s chest, squeezing so tightly Faramir had trouble breathing.

“You don’t know that I love you,” Aragorn said, sounding genuinely shocked. Faramir laughed with wet eyes. “I thought it was the other way around,” Faramir said. “It seems you did not know that _I_ love _you_.”

Aragorn regarded him tenderly. “We’re both idiots,” he said fondly. “My dear ass, I have loved you since the day you opened your eyes in the Houses of Healing. Admittedly not as much as I love you now,” he chuckled. “But since that day you so bravely resisted my advances in Ithilien” -- Aragorn paused to duck Faramir’s swat -- “I have loved you.”

”Then _you_ are an idiot, because I have loved you, _as much_ as I do now, since the Houses of Healing.” Faramir said smugly. Aragorn looked at him disbelievingly.

“Someday, I’ll tell you about my dreams, while I lay there in the darkness, and you called to me,” Faramir said. His eyes teared again and Aragorn kissed him gently.

“These dreams sound filthy,” Aragorn teased. “Was I naked in them?”

“No, not at all,” Faramir said. “Well, perhaps you were a bit naked. I’ll tell you about them sometime. Not now. You have worn me out completely. And I’m hungry. I wonder if Arwen and Eowyn managed to get anything from the larder.”

Aragorn laughed so hard tears streaked his face. “ _You_ are definitely the idiot. They didn’t go to the larder, you fool! That was an excuse for the ladies to leave you to my mercy.”

Twenty minutes later, his mouth full of bread and cheese, Aragorn was glad to find out he had been wrong.

 

***

The king and queen of Gondor, and the prince and princess of Ithilien, yawned through the next day. They felt a flicker of energy return when a messenger brought word of Arwen’s brothers riding to Minas Tirith.

“They are in Ithilien now, and should be here -- today!” Arwen said, pleased. Her brothers were all that remained of her family in Middle-earth, and it comforted her greatly to talk to them. Elladan and Elrohir had not yet met either of the children, and she bustled about in the nursery, preparing the youngsters for their first meeting with their uncles.

Eldarion, because of his youth, was spared most of this, but Gilraen, aged four, was dressed in some of her finest clothes, and sulked when her mother told her she had to stay clean, at least until dinner.

Excited as well, for he thought of Elladan and Elrohir as his brothers, Aragorn went to the kitchens to check on the evening meal. All of the Citadel’s household would gather in the Great Hall to dine. Arwen and Eowyn went to the city’s highest battlement, seven hundred feet up, to look out far across the plain. From there, they would be able to see the two Half-elven men when they were still miles off.

At two hours before sunset, Arwen saw a tiny cloud of dust. It quickly turned into two tall men, dark haired, riding grey horses. Eowyn laughed at Arwen’s excitement: Arwen had shrieked, then darted back to the nursery.

More leisurely, Eowyn followed. She met Faramir on her way to the King’s House, and he smiled and caught her hands. For a moment, they looked at each other, love in their faces. Faramir leaned close to kiss her, and she whispered in his ear, “I should give you fair warning: I have learned many new things.” He laughed, and they went inside, arm in arm.

Riding swiftly, Arwen’s brothers arrived half an hour later, and Aragorn rode down to the first city gate to meet them. He took the brothers directly to their rooms in the Citadel so that they could wash and change their clothing after the long journey, for he knew that, once Arwen was with them, they would talk long into the night.

Prior to dinner, Arwen presented her two children to their uncles, pride in her face. Elladan and Elrohir admired the children, and Elrohir went to lift Gilraen, but the girl let out a wail. “You’re not my uncles,” she cried. “You’re Elves!” She was bewildered by the laughter that broke out, and Arwen led Gilraen away to explain things to her a little more clearly.

In the Great Hall, the six sat alone together at a table on a dais. At other tables, Arwen’s ladies-in-waiting, the Tower Guard, and the rest of the household dined merrily. After the meal, the six stayed at the table, sipping wine and talking. The children were in bed, not before Gilraen had allowed Elladan and Elrohir to give her a brief kiss on each cheek.

Faramir and Eowyn felt a little unease at first in such company, for the sons of Elrond were twins who looked so much alike that they marveled that Arwen could tell them apart. Indeed, it seemed that Aragorn had some trouble doing so. What was beautiful and gentle in Arwen was in them wild, almost frightening. Their dark hair, grey eyes, and pale skin reminded Eowyn of wolves she had once seen in the snow in the hills above Edoras. She looked up to see Elladan -- or was it Elrohir? -- smiling at her, as if he knew her thoughts. She blushed, and was relieved when Arwen addressed them all.

“My brothers, it gives me great joy that you have come at last. I’m sure that eventually Gilraen will welcome you.” They laughed and toasted each other.

“I pray that she will accept us, sister, for your sake,” Elladan told his sister. “And I must congratulate you, or perhaps Aragorn, on the foresight that led you to name her Gilraen. For she is as like to her as I am to Elrohir.” He was surprised at the silence at the table. “Do not doubt me,” he said, “or perhaps you forget that I saw her at that age, in Rivendell, years ago. Indeed, she looks like Aragorn at four, though thankfully much prettier.” Again he was surprised at the silence. He picked up his glass and drained it, scowling at the empty glass as if it were to blame.

Aragorn caught Arwen’s eye in confusion, and was shocked to see a deep red blush engulf her face. The entire company stared at her, for none of them, except her brothers, had ever seen her so. Elrohir, looking into her eyes, stood, and said, “We have dawdled too long over our cups, and must let you folk rest. For we could talk all night -- being Elves.” The company dutifully laughed, rose, and departed. Arwen walked quickly to the royal chambers, hearing Aragorn’s soft footfalls behind her.

Eowyn and Faramir looked at each other, mystified. They went to their rooms and discussed what to do next. Faramir felt they should simply wait, but Eowyn found that difficult to accept. Finally, she settled on the couch by the fire.

“Perhaps you could tell me of what happened last night with Aragorn, while we wait,” she said teasingly. Faramir blushed. His wife looked at him with shining eyes.

She and Arwen had been speechless when Aragorn had lifted Faramir up, as if to ravish him. The two women had gone to eat a late meal, giggling as they discussed clothes and other frivolous topics. At last, they had piled into the bed in Eowyn’s room and giggled for other reasons. Later, the men had arrived, and they had eaten together, but the events of the evening were not discussed. Arwen and Aragorn had left for their own room right after the meal was finished.

Faramir sat next to her and smiled somewhat shyly, his face still red. “I’m not sure I can talk about it, yet,” he said. “You know that I love him. He loves me,” he finished, and blushed deeper.

“Of course he does, Faramir,” Eowyn said gently, and kissed him.

***

Meanwhile, Aragorn watched Arwen warily as she paced the room. He said nothing, for he knew she would tell him everything he needed to know in good time. Before speaking, she undressed, put on nightclothes, and climbed into the bed. He joined her, stripping off everything before getting under the blankets.

“Aragorn,” Arwen began, “I must tell you a story.” Her usually flawless voice squeaked. “Once, there was an old man and an old woman who wanted children more than anything in the world. The years went by, and their wishes went unanswered. At last, after giving up all hope, they took into their home an infant, orphaned.” She paused. “What happens next, do you think?”

Aragorn thought for a moment. “The woman becomes with child, and they end up having a huge family,” he said, puzzled. “It’s happened time and time again. I don’t see the point…”

“No, of course not. I know the question in your mind. You are asking yourself if Gilraen is your child. She is, as is Eldarion.” She moved closer to him and laid a hand on his. He took her hand and stared at it. Gradually his head bowed, until it was resting on their joined hands, and she saw a sob shake him. Tears soaked her hand. She did not move, letting him have a moment alone.

He sat up, his eyes streaming, and said simply, “Tell me all.”

Arwen quickly told him that each time she had lain with Faramir, she had not been fertile. She had a hope, admittedly fragile, that what had worked for the childless couples through the ages would work for them. And it had. Twice now, after she had lain with Faramir, she had become pregnant, two weeks later, perhaps less, by Aragorn. Aragorn was now smiling through his tears, and they were entwined on the bed.

“How does it work?” he whispered to himself, in wonder.

“I am not sure. Is it that, once the pressure is gone, the body relaxes? Or is it competitiveness? I think the latter,” Arwen said. “Which is why it had to be Faramir. I know you admire him more than any other man; no other man would have seemed a threat to you.”

“I lay with you, thinking you already pregnant!”

“Yes. And then I became pregnant. I was surprised you never questioned how long the pregnancies lasted,” she said, laughing. “And I know what you thought -- you thought it was because I am, was, an Elf, and gestation does take longer for us -- for them. But I am as a mortal woman,” she said, and for a moment an old grief touched them.

Aragorn broke the silence. “It didn’t have to be Faramir, did it? Since you had no intention of having his child?”

“Well, no, it did not.”

He watched in fascination as her face turned rosy again. “It could have been any man?” he said, keeping his face stern.

“Perhaps. Does it really matter?”

He caught her in his arms and laughed, kissing her repeatedly. “I will never trust you again.” He raised a hand as she protested. “I will never trust you again, for I find that, when I thought you were trying to break my heart, you were trying to heal it.”

It was Arwen’s turn to weep. Aragorn kissed her wet cheeks, and asked, “Tell me, are you fertile now?” She nodded. “Good,” he whispered.

***

The next day, he rose early and went to Eowyn and Faramir. Eowyn was still abed, asleep; Faramir was sitting by the still smoldering fire, as if he had sat up all night. Aragorn suddenly saw into his heart, and led the steward out into the gardens before telling him, holding him while Faramir wept for the children he did not have. The grief did not last long, for Faramir was filled with joy for Aragorn and Arwen.

“I must admit this has lifted a great burden from my mind. I feared what to say, twenty years hence, when Eldarion asks for Rian’s hand in marriage,” Faramir said teasingly. He was taken aback by the shadow that crossed Aragorn’s face. “What is it, my lord?” Faramir asked. Aragorn smiled at the honorific, and said, “It is nothing.” He was counting the days from when he had lain with Eowyn and Rian’s birth.

The next day, Eowyn and Faramir prepared to leave. The news had, perhaps understandably, left Faramir with a burning wish to see his children, to hold them in his arms, so he and Eowyn left hastily, glad that Aragorn and Arwen had the company of her brothers.

That afternoon, their Elvishness apparently forgiven, Elladan and Elrohir were pressed by Gilraen into giving her “pony rides,” crawling about on their hands and knees on the grass in the King’s House garden, while she sat on their backs or fed them apples. Arwen and Aragorn sat side by side, Eldarion stretched asleep across their laps, peace filling their hearts.

That night, Aragorn made love to Arwen. He had an overpowering urge to see her pregnant again, and she was full willing to try. Later, deep in sleep, Arwen woke when Aragorn sat bolt upright in the bed, an exclamation falling from his lips.

“What is, my dear?” Arwen asked.

“It’s terrible!” Aragorn said. “There is no reason to have Eowyn and Faramir here, ah, overnight, again!”

“There is not?”

“No!”

“All four of us have not been together yet. How will we know if this bed will stand up to such a strain, if not by putting it to the test?”

Aragorn looked at her, startled. All four of them? She was right: it had not yet happened.

“And, then, Aragorn, there are the trips you will take with Faramir throughout the kingdom.”

“There are?”

“Yes. Quite long trips, I should imagine. And while you are gone, Eowyn and I will go to Edoras, so the children can spend a summer there together. I wish to select their ponies myself, with Eowyn’s help, of course, and find a yearling that will be fit for Eldarion later.”

“You and Eowyn have already planned this!” Aragorn roared.

Arwen laughed. “Someone must make plans, it seems.”

Aragorn did not answer, falling back into the pillows with a smile. All four of them. There was so much to try. He had not yet taken Faramir from behind, while Faramir was taking the queen. And the same with Eowyn. And Arwen had yet to see the two men make love. Yes! She, and Eowyn, would be paid back for the torture they had inflicted on the two men. And then…

Two hours later, as Arwen slept, Aragorn was still making plans.

THE END

Revised 10/27/2003


	5. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The king and queen of Gondor are without a heir; luckily, there is a loyal steward close at hand. Alas, he'd rather be sleeping with the king. Warnings: Slash, both male and female. Sibcest. No violence or bad language. A robust PWP.

**Twenty Years Wiser**

Some of the events in this story are described from Boromir’s POV in “Shining One.”

Following modern usage, I have not capitalized titles such as “king” and “queen” and “captain” unless they are used with a proper name, such as King Elessar or Captain Boromir.

Due to the stupidities of Microsoft Word, I have intermixed American and British spellings. May Franklin forgive me.

I did not use special characters for proper names such as Henneth Annun. The vagaries of fanfic archives, where documents are transferred from html to text to word docs and back again, result in some nasty messes where special characters are concerned. Let me know when we are all using Unicode.

My own mental images of the characters are based on numerous re-readings of LOTR over the last 30 years. Yet, I have used physical appearances based on movie reality, while everything else is book reality. I hope this doesn’t confuse people. I’m afraid it confused me, as I seem unable to decide whether Aragorn’s eyes are blue, grey, or blue-grey. Can I blame the lighting?

**Chapter 1 Notes**

It is not known how many daughters Eowyn and Faramir had, nor their names. I used suitable canon names. The same is true for the daughters of Aragorn and Arwen. Only their son’s name, Eldarion, is recorded.

Harandor is a province of Southern Gondor, a region long in contention between Gondor and the Haradrim.

It may seem odd to us during the era of air travel and automobiles that the Prince of Ithilien did not go frequently to Minas Tirith. However, the distance between Minas Tirith and North Ithilien, where Faramir was likely to have lived with Eowyn, was close to seventy-five miles, and most of the distance was not serviced by road. Traveling hard by horseback, that would be at least four days. Traveling by drawn wagons, with wife and children, would take a week or more. It is likely that messengers traveling from North Ithilien to Minas Tirith went by boat, using horses for the return journey.

The King’s House was one of the buildings in the Citadel, the seventh, and highest, level of Minas Tirith. “The Citadel” was also used to describe all structures in the seventh level collectively. These structures included the King’s House, the White Tower of Ecthelion, Merethrond or the Great Hall of Feasts, and undoubtedly numerous outbuildings to house kitchens, storerooms, and the like.

The journey by Eowyn to Edoras, roughly 300 miles, would take close to a month, especially when traveling with children, and was therefore not something that would have happened frequently, perhaps once every few years.

Legolas’s efforts to restore the beauty of Ithilien following the fall of Sauron are mentioned in Tolkien’s writings.

There are several references in Tolkien’s writings concerning the Ruling Stewards taking the throne. It is suggested that Boromir, before meeting Aragorn, wished it.

It is not known, precisely, where the Stewards, at the end of the Third Age, resided in the Citadel. Knowing Denethor, it would not have been directly in the King’s House, certainly not in whatever area had been designated as the Royal Chambers. The White Tower seems to have been used primarily as a building of state, for councils and the like, not a residence. For the purposes of my story, I have made the Steward’s residence a building adjoining and connected to the King’s House.

It is not known how long the new gates for Minas Tirith took to construct; based on descriptions of similar construction in Tolkien’s writings, it may have taken decades.

Mirrors were known in Middle-earth; they would have been small and uncommon.

Merethrond, the Great Hall of Feasts, was probably used infrequently. Undoubtedly, the King’s House had smaller dining areas for the family and staff that were used on a daily basis. The Guards had their own mess halls.

The Southlands are another name for Gondor. At state dinners, featuring the national products during the meal is something governments cling to even today.

We never hear Faramir call Aragorn “Strider.”

Would forks have been in use? Yes, especially for fruit.

Curtained alcoves with beds are described in The Return of the King. Pippin sleeps in one. In the days before central heating, beds were constructed like miniature rooms to trap body heat. The beds also tended to be large enough for an entire family, for the same reason: retention of body heat.

Royal families keep power by producing heirs; past shenanigans are innumerable. That Aragorn or Arwen would stoop to such a thing is of course a figment of my perverted imagination.

Tables with basins and water for washing are described in The Return of the King. No mention of chamber pots. Like any other author, I reserve the right to pretend the characters have no such needs.

Poor Faramir is prone to strange dreams.

As recently as the past century, oral sex was considered a perversion even between married couples. It is considered a perversion still in many parts of the world, lumped with “sodomy.”

Use of the word “breeches” is _de rigueur_ in slash fan fiction. Sorry about that.

Aragorn would arrive shortly after any messenger announcing his coming. Such is the misfortune of having a king used to hard traveling.

I used the Tolkien canon name “Mardil” for the sword master because I like the way it evokes Mars, the god of war. No disrespect intended to Mardil the Steadfast.

As you may have guessed, my description of Mardil’s injury, and its effects, is one I have seen in “real” life.

There has been no army in history that did not engage in homosexual practices. Some made a virtue of it. Tolkien, a soldier during World War I, not to mention a survivor of the British school system, could not have been unaware of such goings on. His thoughts on sexual love between men are unknown, but he would undoubtedly find LOTR slash fan fiction offensive. Thank goodness he doesn’t know about my story.

The use of the word “beautiful,” applied to men, occurs frequently in Tolkien’s writings, unlike the modern tepid “handsome” or “good-looking.” What I find interesting is that Tolkien always refers to a combination of inner and outer beauty when he uses the word, not mere physical perfection, and I use the word in the same way.

Mardil would not have been staying at an inn, but in a barracks. That didn’t work for my story.

Oil is another necessity of slash writing. Butter is better, my friends tell me, but the images butter conjures up are either too humorous, or too reminiscent of Last Tango in Paris.

Hopefully no one will find the pairing of a sixteen year old with a thirty-five year old innately offensive. I consider sixteen year olds capable of such decisions _legally_ , although they usually aren’t mentally or emotionally. Older men who prey on younger men and women are a fact of life; such pairings are the number one cause of teenage pregnancies in the U.S.

I find incest between siblings dreadfully sad in real life. I’m not sure why it is appealing in the fantasy world; probably has something to do with twin/hermaphroditic myths. Time to go read Robert Graves again.

**Chapter 2 Notes**

I have invented a residence in North Ithilien for Faramir and Eowyn. They would not have lived in Henneth Annun. Imagine keeping the kiddies from falling into the Forbidden Pool.

The Numenoreans were ruled by queens in the past. Their acceptance of it changed with circumstances.

The Golden Wood was the name Faramir used for Lothlorien in LOTR. Aragorn is picking up habits from his subjects.

Mardil’s eventual fate does not come into this story. That is described in “Shining One,” which is currently beta.

“… the shared burden of an unloving father.” In my opinion, Denethor did not love Boromir better than Faramir, as it seems his love for his eldest was based on Boromir’s obedience to his will, and was not given unconditionally. But, hey, that’s me.

I gave the lovers in Henneth Annun more privacy than they would have had in reality.

**Chapter 3 Notes**

In Gondor, the date of the New Year celebrated the fall of Sauron and the start of the Fourth Age.

Clitoris: I really hate coy descriptions such as “bud of desire.”

Arwen’s ladies-in-waiting are a mystery, although we do know that Sam’s daughter held a similar function for a time. I have made up the fact that some of them were the widows of Rangers that fell in the War of the Ring, just because it seems groovy to me.

Great Scott! Eowyn becomes a slash fan.

**Chapter 4 Notes**

Is it probable that three years would pass? Well, no. Such is the nature of plotting.


End file.
